The Smell Of Light

Every once and while, when I was on the stairs leading to the second floor, I noticed a piticular odor. A kinda bad funky aroma. We have a semi-spiral stair case that is carpeted in a light beige so if it was a "present" left behind by my dog or cat, I would have found it already. And believe me, I have searched for the cause of the assault on my offactory nerve. As the stink came and when, I had just attributed it to being seasonal. Until late last night.

The stair light was on , as the boys had raced upstairs ahead of me, and as I started my assent, I noticed that the smell was once again back. "Where is it, where is it?", I mumble to myself, scanning the vicinity around my feet for an invisible turd. At the top of the stair, I flick off the light, and it hits me. I turn the switch back on and look up. There, in the large opeg glass light fixture, is a dark shadow. It is not a burned out light bulb. It looks like a sizable dead bat draped across the inside of the glass. But I cannot be certain. But I hoped it was that simple of an answer to our phantom smell.

"YOU BOY'S!" Out they pop of their rooms both boys wide eyed. "WHAT DID YOU THROW INTO THE LIGHT?" Any good mother knows you do not yell an accusation at a kid and expect him to come clean. Their chanced of growing a halo and sprouting wings are more likely than a confession at this point of confrontation. They both dart quick glances at each other as they franticaly shake their heads in denial. They have both been fully warned not only about throwing things at the light fixture, but worse yet, the vintage irreplaceable stained glass window behind it.

"Well what ever it is, you are going to help me get it down." How we are going to do this, none of us know. It would take one of those special latter's or scaffolding to get up there. "K1, hold my ankles ", is my first brigh idea, as I try climbing ontop of the little four inch wide half wall at the top of the stairs to try to balance myself and reach the fixture with a stick. I am not munkay enough to pull that move off, I thought as long fall to my painful demise loomed below. I could not get high enough with a chair. A tall book case brought me closer but I still couldn't achieve the right angle to reach the "bat" with a stick. Or a vacuum cleaner hose. Success came with a wire coat hanger bend into a hook on the end of the vacuum hose.

It was not a dead flying rodent that I pulled out of our chandelier. It was a pair of small heavily skid marked "Hulk" boxer shorts. No one here will claim them and I don't remember ever buying them. If they are yours, you can retrieve them from the garbage at the end of the driveway. And please remove the markers from the hallway light that my hook was unable to recover when you do.