stink farm

Last night was the dress rehearsal for the performance. A bunch of random people (well, maybe they weren't that random to some, but they were random to me) showed up to watch. One of these people who was invited by a student's family was in a wheelchair. Well, she also had a catheter. Apparently, during the performance, the smell was so bad that it completely threw off everyone's focus. They thought the smell was coming from backstage, but it was from the audience. The performance ended around 6:30, but for some reason this woman was sitting in the front lobby until almost 10 pm. She was abandoned by the family that invited her and waiting for the van service to come pick her up.

The smell was so bad that the students could not stand to be on the same floor as her. You couldn't walk past her without holding my breath. I'm still trying to formulate words to describe the awful stench. Rotting flesh comes to mind, but that is only scratching the surface. It seemed to travel into every corner of the main floor and even in the stairwell. I never knew a smell to permeate in this way. Ick... so gross.

It was sooooo wrong for her people to just leave her. They were able to leave while everyone in the building suffered. I know I shouldn't be talking this way about someone with her problem, but I think if you were here, you would sympathize with me (um... well, I guess you wouldn't have a choice...)

After she left the building, there was another smell we had to deal with. This one was caused by a spilled bag of ice in a students' room. The building is old and the carpet in some of the rooms may be the original carpet. Well, the melted ice in combination with 213408972934 year old carpet becomes quite putrid when left wet overnight. It smelled sort of like a foul mold, though I preferred it to the catheter. Ugh... I shiver at the thought of it. I was worried that last night wouldn't end, but I'm back here now, at work. Thank goodness I only have one last Saturday overnight shift before my three week break.