TRASH!

ok, so there's this smell outside my apartment. i know exactly what it is. the greek restaurant downstairs (one of a hundred thousand greek diners in astoria, none of which have a specialty but serve gyros, kabobs, hamburgers, pizzas, and cheap cuts of steak with equal aplomb) leaves its garbage, a horrible, stinking, rotting mess, at the foot of its basement stairs. now, if this basement were only reachable through the building, they wouldn't do it, i'm sure. even the crazy greeks that run the place would be run out of their own space by the hulking stink-bomb. however, this is new york, which means that basements open up not into the houses, but onto the sidewalk. so our dear greek restaurant flings open its metal trap doors every morning, letting the smell of rotting lettuce and onion and cast-off meat and cast-off food waft into the muggy new york summer.

waft, specifically, into our front hallway, the door to which is always open since we share the building with a greek realtor, a woman i affectionately call constantina constantinopolis, even though her name is something else. not something less greek, just different. the smell then reaches our apartment in two ways: it goes up our stairs and sneaks into the apartment when we open the door; it also snakes up the building into my windows, which are right above the offending trap-door.

i asked amanda last night if the smell bothered her like it does me. i've gotten to the point, dear readers, where i have to hold my breath all the way from the corner until i've shut the apartment door behind me. just a whiff of the garbage smell is enough to turn my stomach. scratch that. just thinking about the garbage smell is enough to turn my stomach. "well," she said, "i think it's gross. but i definitely don't think it's that awful. and i really can barely smell it inside the apartment."

i, on the other hand, can smell it all the time. it's possible that it's because of my new medicine, one of the side effects of which is loss of appetite and nausea. i mean, sure, it makes sense that if you're on a medicine that makes you nauseous and then you smell horrible rotting trash all the time, you're going to be a lil' sensitive to it.

i've been given bougie little room sprays by my coworkers, after having complained to them of the smell, and use them when i get home and before i go to bed. granted, it then reminds me of that commercial that says "what's worse than the smell of fish? the smell of fish and flowers." what's worse than the smell of rotting greektrash? the smell of rotting greektrash and "moonlight garden."

so, you new yorkers, come by sometime and give me your opinion. i'll make you dinner: gyros, kabobs, hamburgers, or pizza. your pick.