This time of the semester, “quick” is the basic culinary watchword around here. This means frozen stir-fries, refrigerated pastas, crock-pot meat, and, on occasion, take-out and Helper. As in Tuna Helper, Hamburger Helper, etc. We are careful to maintain some laughable semblance of standards, using ground sirloin and solid white albacore in the Helper. In the course of being a grad student, I’ve managed to develop a relationship with Creamy Garlic Tuna Helper, particularly in cold, cold weather.

So yesterday I arrived home from teaching with take-out lunch in hand only to find Mister Husband at the stove whipping up a batch of tuna and noodles. We decided to put it in the fridge and eat what I’d brought home for lunch. Mister Husband muttered something about the tuna having black flecks in it, and I thought it did look suspicious. He had drained it into the sink and then thrown the can in the trash, and by late afternoon it smelled like three-day old tuna in the kitchen. We ran a bunch of hot water down the pipes, took out the trash, and went off to our evening seminar.

This morning, the kitchen reeked. Mister Husband teaches on Wednesday morning, so I just spent thirty minutes of my copious spare time executing the following:

• cleaned the drains with baking soda and vinegar
• followed that with about a zillion gallons of hot water
• scrubbed the sink out with Comet With Bleach
• threw away the sponge
• threw away the Tuna Helper in the fridge, bleached the pan, and put it in the dishwasher
• Lysol’d the garbage can and put in a fresh liner
• hosed the kitchen and adjoining living room down with Oust and Febreeze
• hiked the trash out to the garbage cans, through the snow and 5 degree air

When I left with the garbage, I thought it smelled okay. When I came back in, I was hit with a snootful of Eau de Tuna. It will.not.die. I don’t have time to embark on a full-scale cleaning throw-down in the kitchen, so I’ve given up and opened the windows in the living room for an hour. At least the frozen air takes awhile to reach all the way back here to my office.