I have been trying to explain to my boyfriend that Robinson’s have impressive gag reflexes. I explained the story of a family road trip where my baby spit up caused a chain reaction of throw up for my entire family except my dad. I’d tried to demonstrate the especially loud sound that occurs when a doctor jammed a popsicle stick down my throat. Perhaps he started to believe me when, in attempts to make me feel better in a night of sickness, he administered Nyquil to me, and I barfed in Technicolor. But if he didn’t believe me and my insistence that my stomach is typically in a volatile state, then he must believe me now.

Anyone who has continually tuned into previous blogs of mine might recall my Declaration of Independence from the Dorms. I am here today to add another grievance. The dorm institution has removed the large trashcans in the bathroom because a certain unnamed person (Chloe Noelle Skidmore) placed an unnaturally stinky cheese inside of it. So now that we have lost our trash- throwing away privileges, we have been forced to throw unnaturally stinky cheeses in our own waste baskets, which only get emptied—lets be honest—once a week at best. This is how I proved to my boyfriend the true range and magnitude of my gag reflex. Let me explain.
Coming home to a sign on my door from my roommate, who typically has a terrible sense of smell (no offense Michele), that says “Sierra… It’s worse” was an ominous sign. The night prior, I had noticed a nasty odor emanating from an unknown location in my bedroom. Michele, the lucky duck, could not smell it then. The next morning, it was infinitely worse. I went straight to the source, removing what I figured it must have been—The Panda Express from Monday. Feeling satisfied that I had successfully expunged the offensive odor, I went back into my room, to find the smell still very much omnipresent. Digging a little bit, I found the true source of the smell that was ruining my life.
Do you know what the worst smell IN THE WORLD is? I do. I learned it when I was a child and left my cup of milk on the counter and went to drink it three days later. I should have known. There at the bottom of my trash in my dorm was the innocent looking bottle of skim milk chunks, tipped over on its side and permeating the room with its poison.
So indeed, Michele was right, during the day, despite the fact that I removed the bottles of milk chunks, the smell was indeed worse. And so I called my boyfriend for moral support and went to empty the trash completely. It needed to be cleaned. It needed to be burned. I watched sour milk pour from the trash to the dumpster, I gagged loudly. I had to hang up. I had to run as far away from the trash as possible. And then I had to take care of the smell.
I took the trashcan and ran through the dorms, collecting strange looks as I dashed holding the trash as far away from me as possible. Finally I made it to the laundry room, stuck the basket in the sink, put some nice-smelling detergent in it, and got a big whiff. I couldn’t help it. My gag was more than just a gag, if you know what I mean. It’s lucky that I had a trash can right there to throw up into.