This Stinks

As I write this, my wife is cleaning one of our two auxiliary fish bowls - necessary because our actual fish tank can't handle all the guppies and snails we ended up with once they started to breed. We've since segregated them by gender so the problem's not getting any worse, but these critters make one heck of a stinky mess. Snailerbiggeus (yes, that's the actual name of our largest snail) is quite the pungent little gastropod.

In the next room, we have two guinea pigs who also, as it turns out, fail to smell like roses in bloom. They're filthy little rodents who have no compunctions about lounging in their own waste on those occasions when they're not actually eating it.

Upstairs, we have not one but two gerbil cages, because one of the residents is the embodiment of evil and wouldn't get along with the nice one. And nobody's had the heart to destroy him, much as it would make the world a truly better place. Anyway, these particular rodents are somewhat less pungent than their larger cousins downstairs, but they do manage to kick pine chips and gerbil poop out in a sizable radius around their cages, and they also do not smell like sweet, sweet flowers.

Now, granted, my kids, my wife, and, to a much lesser extent (much, much lesser!) myself make far bigger messes around the house, but at least we all usually smell pretty good. Unless you catch me right after karate, then all bets are off. But the rest of the time, not so bad. Which is why the pee-eww from the critters is so pronounced and unwelcome. They really get your attention when they're ripe. The rest of the time, I mostly don't notice them to be honest. But right now, their foetid miasma happened to coincide with my need to come up with a blog topic, so there you are. If you were hoping for something more profound than how smelly my family's pets are, you'll just have to try again tomorrow. No promises or anything, though.