In the long ago when I still worked in retail, my store had a pot luck for the team. One manager brought chili in a crock pot. Some was left over so into the break room fridge it went.
The chili is a week old. It is still in the fridge. All the other potluck leftovers have sensibly gone home.
The chili is three weeks old. Someone suggests the manager might remove the crockpot and take the chili home for disposal. The manager waves this off. Of course he will get to it.
The chili is now two months old. The smell has taken over the break room fridge. It infects anything we place inside, which since there are no other options, includes employee lunches. I eat take out when I am able but that isn’t always economically feasible.
The chili is now six months old. The manager says he will take the crockpot home any day now. The smell permeates the break room at all times and has begun to slink out to the hallway. I start to wonder if this is a social experiment testing how much low-paid labor will endure.
The chili is eight months old. A coffin odor wafts from the break room making coherent thought impossible. You can detect it as far as aisle 11. This cannot go on. I bring supplies from home and use my unpaid break pry the remains from the crockpot and wash the dish like a defiled body. I do my best the purge the stench from the fridge. The miasma has entrenched itself in a manner that I could not properly address with mere commercially available chemicals. I need a young priest and an old priest.
The manager notices and says “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to get to it.” He laughs as he says this. I’m think there is some small part of him that believes this statement. This memory comes to me a night sometimes when I’m trying to sleep. He believed it.