Mystery Solved

I can't help myself...this is worth a second post today. Our new house has a great pantry in the basement. You may remember this as the sight of the "plumbing incident" that occurred early last month. It is actually where the hot water heater and sump pump are located, but Lew had built some great shelves along the wall, and the room is just perfect for excess groceries and an assortment of kitchen appliances. As much as I love the room, about a week or two after we moved in, I became painfully aware of a funky odor that seemed to lurk there. I kept saying, "It smells like a dead animal down here!" I told myself that the smell was the result of the gallons of water that had blasted through the room when the pipes broke. I told myself the smell would go away. I bought an air freshener. Then I bought another air freshener. Soon the room smelled like dead animal, with a twist of citrus. I told Steve the smell was getting worse, yet neither of us could come up with a solution.
Fast forward to this morning. I'd been wanting to rearrange a few items in the pantry, namely, our large Coleman cooler, and the big plastic bin that holds the dog food. I never had really found a proper place for either, and figured, I'm unemployed, I think I'll do it today! I grabbed the handle to the cooler and pulled it over next to the freezer - - a perfect spot for it. As I did, there was an audible "slosh". Hmmm. My first thought was that during the "flood", water had gotten into the cooler. Aha! Stagnant water, possibly mold, lurking inside...stench solved! I quickly flipped the top of the cooler open, not even remotely prepared for what I would find. There, sitting in a pool of red water, was a lone package of, you guessed it - - ground elk meat. Rotten to the high heavens. I dry-heaved a couple of times, then closed the lid as fast as I could. Have you ever smelled raw meat, that has been sitting at room temperature for nearly four weeks? I didn't think so. Now, how did a package of elk meat find its way into my cooler, you ask? I'm not one to point fingers, but lets go ahead and backtrack a little. I'm rather pregnant, so I'm quite sure that I didn't move the very large deep freezer over here from our old house, nor did I transport the 100+ pounds of frozen elk meat. That task was tackled by my husband, and my father. Now that I think about it, I do recall my dear father boasting about how nicely he had arranged all of the elk meat, by cut, in the freezer. Apparently, "someone" (remember, I'm not pointing fingers) overlooked a package.
Needless to say, our poor cooler is now out in the alley, next to the garbage cans (with the rotten meat still inside). No matter what you say, you can't make me believe that I would ever be able to get that smell out. Even if I did, it would give me nightmares, for sure. Steve claims he might remove the offending item from the cooler, so as not to surprise some unsuspecting garbage men . I told him I didn't recommend opening that lid, but I'll leave that up to him. Now I must go, and spray some more Lysol up my nose.