Stankonia

I hate the earth. Ok, hang on - don't get nuts, I'm just saying, sometimes doing the right thing is hard. Like using reusable bags. They're great...until you buy some raw chicken at the grocery store and the bagger doesn't exactly put it in your organic eco-friendly fabric bag properly then you put it in your trunk then it leaks everywhere and then you pull into your garage see the damage, curse like a sailor and shake your fists at the sky...

...otherwise they're great.

So this leaky chicken juice? It's a killer. It leaked into the carpet of my trunk and the kids kept saying, "WHY DOES THE CAR SMELL LIKE BARF, MOMMY?" No joke, it was horrific. I scrubbed it, Febreezed it, nothing.

I took it to a car wash and even the manager shook his head and said, "I bet raw meat leaked in here, I don't think I can help you." I paid them to shampoo the trunk anyway and he was right. The stank stayed.

Look, I spend A LOT of time in my car. My $70 fill up at the gas station can attest to that, so this stink - I just couldn't live with it. I did a lot of research to find out how other people who've had the same issues got rid of smell, and the stories were horrifying. Someone had a jar of pickles explode in their car. (What the?) Another person had frozen dead rabbits defrosting for two days in their trunk that they forgot about (double WHAT??) so I knew these people would probably have the answer.

I tried laundry detergent, baking soda, Febreeze, and just as I was about to sell the car I came across a post that suggested vanilla extract. Oddly enough I had just won a year's supply of vanilla in a recipe contest. It couldn't hurt to try.

I mixed together 2 teaspoons of vanilla with 10 ounces of water, sprayed the trunk and hoped for the best. It was like the clouds opened up and a miracle appeared. The smell was gone. COMPLETELY. There wasn't even a vanilla smell it was just....nothing. Have you ever smelled absolutely nothing? It's amazing. Like someone has gotten rid of one of your senses totally.

I sprayed the trunk a few more times over the course of two days and I am happy to say as of today, I am STANK FREE. I need to bottle this miracle elixer and make a fortune. Little bottles of this to squirt on the sweaty masses at Comic Con would do wonders, just sayin'.