My Commute Stinks

On my way to work I pass many stinky things.

The first of these stinky things is a transfer station. If you don't know what a transfer station is:

So basically, it is a home for wayward trash...or a pre-landfill landfill.

On some days you would never know it is even there, but others you can clearly smell the fetid odors of trash and spoiled food wafting over the highway as you try to make it through the tiny toll booth as quickly as possible so you don't have to breathe in the smell.

Oh god. The stench! Must. Not. Breathe.

The next two stinky places are really close together and their proximity makes for a smell that is doubly awful, like some sort of bouquet of raunchiness.

Ahhhhhh...Eau d'Ass Stink....

The first place in this duo of stench is a waste water treatment facility, or as I like to call it "The Poo Refinery." It, as you might imagine, smells like shit at all times. But sometimes there is an especially bad shit smell day. As if the whole town has eaten Taco Bell, bad Indian food, and all manner of fried things, all at once.

Oh god, there will be no toilet paper left in the tri-state area!

The second place in the duo is a fish factory. Here they fry and freeze all of the fish patties, fish sticks, and fish nuggets that get shipped to a store near you. And you can smell its extreme fishiness mixing with the aforementioned poo refinery. Eugh...I may or may not have thrown up in my mouth a little...

Anyone want to smell an ass-ton of fried fish and poo?

I work right on the seacoast (less than a mile away from the local beach), and twice daily I have the chance to smell low tide. Usually it is just once, but if I time it just right (or wrong) I get to smell it as I arrive AND as I leave. Woohoo!

For those of you who have never had the privilege of smelling low tide, I'm not really sure how to describe it. The best analogy I can come up with is it is like the ocean just farted up this smell of fish, salt water, and icky sand, but the nice ocean smell is there too, so you sniff it anyway.

Because you are an ocean fart sniffer.

After I escape the ocean farts and get into work, I get to smell melted plastic. It's what we do. We melt the plastic and make it into fiber, which is then made into rugs, felt, auto carpeting, etc. I have pretty much gotten used to it, but every now and then, a machine gets gummed up and the plastic burns. That is NOT a pretty smell.

Why does it smell like a well-done, barbecued Barbie doll in here?
I specifically asked for medium-rare.

When I get to my office, I have the pleasure of sitting near the bathrooms that inexplicably smell like someone just took a huge, greasy dump in there at all times. Seriously. They have never NOT smelled like that.

Bonus (I guess?): You can take a shit and no one will know.

So that is the olfactory version of my commute. You're welcome.