Home of the Snarkmaiden

Or new ways to sustain (and embrace?) catastrophic yarn loss.

A sickly sweet miasma of death, rot, and corruption has been gradually seeping from the reading corner of my office for the better part of a week now. I had picked through the basket of yarns by my chair, since that seemed to be the source, several times and not found anything ghastly. But the smell did not diminish over time. It kept growing nastier, more pungent. Tonight the stank of it had reached a point where I figured I would move filing cabinets if I had to, to find and dispose of whatever mouse or bird head Tinka had put up to ripen.

Turns out I didn't have to work that hard. Kaylee's nose picked out the source of the pong. I had previously discounted the bag of ribbon yarn when I was rooting around the yarn basket because it was, well, not sealed exactly, but narrow and deep and not easy to accidentally drop random bits of carrion into. Yeah, well, then I lifted the bag and I noted that the side of it was torn out, and in among the nice copper-colored ribbon yarn that I had hoped to turn into a dressy tank top was a rather large white and black-tipped blob of...fur? I went and got a plastic bag to extract the trophy. It seemed to be mammalian rather than avian, and I wasn't sure if it was intact or a hairy gobbet. I wrinkled my nose, screwed up my courage, and grabbed the furry lump with my bag-swathed hand. It was surprisingly heavy, whatever it was. And big. With a thickish, naked pink tail and matted, long silky fur. Yes, ladies and germs, Tinka had buried an entire juvenile opossum in the bottom of my bag of ribbon yarn -- unless the possum wasn't fully dead when she left it, in which case I guess the possum buried itself there -- where it has been cheerfully turning into malodorous possum sludge ever since.

Can I just say, "EEWWWWwww!"? Yeah.

But I must tip my hat to Tinka. I guess the old girl still has it in her, even though she must be ten or more, by now.

I may just have to toss the ribbon yarn though. I'll try baking soda first, and then Nature's Miracle (old style), but I am not entirely hopeful. Where's Sunshine Cleaning when you need them?