Big Graze Road Lesson 1: Watch your pungent acquisitions

Last month, while we waited for the skies to clear over Hollister so we could go up for our breathtaking glide, we drove up the road to see what was on offer at the locally famous Casa de Fruta. The Casa is a fruit stand/roadside attraction on steroids with an overwhelming amount of stuff. The whole place was hung with new garlic braids. A new braid was on our shopping list for in this area — which is famous for its garlic production — and, the price was right, so we found a nice one and checked out.

We put the braid in the back of the truck and headed off to soar through the now-clearing skies. But when we got back to the car after our glide, the heavy garlic smell hit us as soon as we opened the door. Whoa! Val wrapped the braid in two plastic bags, put the package in a brown paper bag and then tucked it deep into the kitchen stuff in the very back of the Element.

A short time later, we were on our way to Berkeley and I had to roll down my window for some fresh air. Pew! Afraid to leave it to embed its essence into the car, we took the braid into our room at the Berkeley Rodeway Inn. We stored it in the little alcove off the bathroom and we opened our window onto the courtyard. But as I reclined in bed, blogging our day, I could still smell the garlic and it was starting to get to me. Finally, I’d had it. I took the garlic out to the parking lot and put it under the front wheel of the car, where, Val pointed out, it looked like a suspicious package. A stink bomb, I said. By then, I was crabby about it — I don’t care what happens to it, I just can’t stand to smell it anymore, I said. Let some fool steal it, then it will be his stinky karmic problem. Val said he thought it would be better if he bungeed it to the roof of the car, which he did.

Back in bed, I was thinking I didn’t like the way the weird little package called attention to the car. I knew I couldn’t breathe its perfume for another two weeks. We have to get rid of it, I told Val. Cut our losses. We couldn’t mail it to ourselves, because our mail was on hold at the post office for three more weeks and you can get yourself in trouble by stinking up government workplaces. Then it came to me: we’d mail it to Laurie with instructions to hang it in one of her out-buildings, where its scent would not offend. And let me just say: you know you have a good friend when you can mail your stinky problems to them. (Thanks, Laur, you’re the best!)

So the next day, with great relief, I slid the braid into a Priority Mail box and handed the stink to the USPS. What a free feeling! In a couple of days, Laurie reported the package’s receipt and the braid is now hung safely in her garage, where the dogs give it an occasional curious sniff, but human noses remain unassailed. This weekend the braid will finally come home to Covina. It will be stored in our garage, where we hope it will mellow, or at very least, inhibit termite colonization.