TACO SOUP

Ahhhhhhh. It's over.

The multitudes~(made up of wonderful, supportive friends, family and neighbors~as well as~oblivious, food scavenging/dessert hording adolescents without a thought for what the garbage bags hanging from every door knob meant to them as consumers and disposers~for apparently scattering and kicking soiled and dripping with tomato sauce utensils, paper goods and baby sipped water bottles underneath chairs, tables and on any clean and decorated surface would do the job equally as well)~descended, ate, mirthily (I know it's not a word, but it's more fun to say than "mirthfully") congratulated and then filth and crudded up the place, (but some of them also gave us generous checks to help out with missionary economics, so all is forgiven them. The rest of you? (raised eyebrow and condescending expression)) then tromped back out the door to their awaiting carriages (mini-vans) and fish tailed down the ice rink streets, smiling and singing,~"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...to our clean home...that doesn't have ground in cream puffs smeared into the carpet...and fermenting food sleeping in assorted nooks and crannies that won't be found until next summer when she moves the furniture.......so glad I'm not herrrrrrr........Ooooh what fun it is to ride..."~you get the idea.

I, on the other hand, waved goodbye, closed the door and only then let my stomach erupt, popping dress seams and ripping pantyhose, as I could finally relax the gut that I'd been holding in all day, pretending that my recently invented and strictly adhered to "stress and reward eating system" was not causing any tell-tale damage.

I scratched my bum, let out a wee little (giant-gut-dropper-warm-pooh-air-bomb) stinker and went about the home opening every single door and window I could to get the smell of taco soup (thus the giant-gut-dropper-warm-pooh-air-bomb) to flee my premises. "FLEE! FLEE!" I waved and shouted, moving air around with my arms flapping wildly.

EVERYTHING smells like taco soup, people. Everything.

The left over cookies, (sniffed while I wolfed and gobbled. I'm no waster) my hair, (sniffed and grimaced all night as I tried to sleep through the stench) the ceiling, (I stood on a chair and sniffed~it's best to know what you're dealing with right from the very beginning.)

You can smell it hanging in the air like tree ornaments up the front walk. It has even infiltrated the sleeping rose bushes outside and next years crop will undoubtedly smell like fragrant, rosy B.O.

Anyway, the temp has been a balmy 30 degrees most of the day, hence I've kept the windows cracked and several candles burning so as to scorch the reek the "H" out of here. Missionary son will probably arrive at the training center and they'll dispatch him straight to sanitize/detox/quarantine, so as not to take any chances of the other missionaries becoming infected with taco soup.

Which may make it easier for him to leave this stinky home.

Which may also distract me from him leaving this stinky home.

Which may be a reason to bless taco soup's heart in all it's foul and disgusting glory.

Bless you taco soup. Grace in disguise.