Suzy Says

Jerry Seinfeld gets his car back from the valet, and something is amiss.

Jerry: Boy, do you smell something?
Elaine: Do I smell something? What am I, hard of smelling? Of course I smell something.
Jerry: What is it?
Elaine: I think it’s B.O.!
Jerry: What?
Elaine: It’s B.O. The valet must have had B.O.
Jerry: It can’t be. Nobody has B.O. like this.
Elaine: Jerry. It’s B.O.
Jerry: But the whole car smells.
Elaine: So?
Jerry: So when somebody has B.O., the “O” usually stays with the “B”. Once the “B” leaves, the “O” goes with it.

— Seinfeld, “The Smelly Car”

I may have solved the Mystery of the Cat at Midnight, without any help from Nancy Drew (though I still envy her blue convertible and general efficiency). It seems that Roscoe may in fact have been amusing himself with a late bird behind the box of my late father’s letters.

Working all the time has not improved my general domestic disability, but the strange smell that made its odoriferous appearance lately was above and beyond my lack of housekeeping skills. I pulled out the couch, but there was only a crop of unscented dust bunnies back there. I virtuously vacuumed them up and replaced the couch. The smell was still there, so I kept hunting. Oh Nancy, where art thou?

My house is small, and basically one room, so the places to look in this game of stink hide and seek were limited. Eventually, I thought to remove the box of letters, revealing a very dead Steller’s Jay. I swept the deceased onto a dustpan and removed it to the woods, but even though the “B” was gone, the “O” remained, and it seemed that the removal made the O worse.

I mopped the entire area under the stairs with Clorox and water, which I had previously believed had omnipotent cleaning powers. But it was powerless against the O. As Jerry said, “This is not just an odor – you need a priest to get rid of this thing! It’s a presence! It’s The Beast!” I borrowed Nature’s Miracle from my sister, thinking that if it gets rid of skunk smell, it can get rid of dead bird smell, but The Beast just laughed at it and turned up the stink. I applied more Clorox and prayed. Rob came by and applied Pine Sol, crawling around under the stairs with a sponge which went straight into the trash, but the cure was temporary. At this point, I have to hope it fades with time, or move. Any cleaning or exorcism tips gratefully accepted.

A YEAR AGO: Birthdays and anniversaries. Unscented.