Grossssssssss!
Here are two gross stories inspired by a post on sooeys the other day.
We had an old farmhouse in our family that had been passed down from when the first of us made the trip across the sea from cold damp rocky Scotland to find a cold damp rocky spot to settle on in Northern Ontario. Every summer my mom would send us down there - with my grandmother, who lived with us in the Sault - for a few weeks so we could fantasize about owning a cottage on the water - like our neighbours.
Anyway, one of the weekly rituals involved my mom coming down for a couple of hours to visit, after which she'd take the week's worth of garbage back to the city to put out for pick-up. Well, this particular summer, my grandmother broke her leg and had to be at home in the city so the summer farm visit for us was cut short (Are you there, god? It's me - sooey) and that was that.
After a day or two, we noticed a weird smell in the car. Nothing we couldn't put down to July heat, but with each passing day, it seemed to get worse. By August, no one was asking for a ride anywhere - that's for sure.
Eventually, the smell got so bad, my mom decided she should take the car in to a mechanic (c'mon - she was a widow in the '60s - what the hell would she know about cars?) to investigate the mysterious smell. But for some reason no one can remember now, my sister decided to check the trunk in case her missing bathing suit was there.
Oh! My! God! She opened the trunk and what seemed like hundreds of flies flew in her face and after she was done screaming she looked down to find the trunk alive with maggots and rotting garbage from the farm.
The second story also involves my sister (I was smart and kept a low profile around our house so I wouldn't ever be asked to go down the basement and bring up a can of whatever from the cellar for supper). There had been a bit of a stink coming from the basement for a while, my gram kept saying, "I'll go down there and see what's what", but then she got called away to visit another relative and so never did investigate. In the meantime, my mom went on a trip somewhere and one night my sister - who was alone in the house - decided to go down the basement to seem if by chance there was a can of smoked oysters in the cellar (she loved smoked oysters - LOVED THEM!!).
Anyway, she headed down the stairs and halfway down (we always went down the basement stairs in slow motion - our basement was really creepy) she became aware of a low buzzing noise. Thinking it was the dryer or somesuch, she continued on down. When she turned on the light at the bottom of the stairs (because of course you had to actually be IN the basement before you could have any light...) it looked at first like the walls were black.
And moving.
Flies. Big fat flies were crawling all over the basement walls.
She backed up in a semi-hysterical state, backed up the stairs, and ran from the house to get out next door neighbour - the most squeamish guy on the planet - to go down with her to the basement again and get a window open to get the flies out of the basement (I know - she must have really wanted those smoked oysters...).
Somehow - and our neighbour suited up in dishwashing gloves and his dad's welding mask - he got the window open without dropping dead of a heart attack - and the flies all headed out into the waning light of evening to live out their disgusting one day lives.
Some time later, my gram went down to investigate and notice the outline of a dead rat on the floor near the sewer drain (of course we had to have a sewer drain in our creepy basement). "I guess that rat must've crawled up that sewer drain to die and the flies got him."
Thanks for that, gram. See you in hell, too.
