Merton's Retention: A Short Story

The night before my husband, Merton was to return from his retention classes. He called me for our usual conversation before calling it a night. Asking what he would like for dinner, he said he wanted Jerk Chicken for dinner. I had to look in the deep freezer for the chicken; I had not been cooking for the whole twenty days Merton was away. When I opened the deep freezer to see if we indeed had chicken to cook because the chicken needed to be thawed before the marinating process. As our conversation continues, I open the deep freezer to see what I had to work with or if I needed to stop into Walmart on my way back home.

I opened the deep freezer and MY GOOD, GRANNY, GRACIOUS! THE SMELL WAS TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE and UNBEARBLE!! It smelt like something crawled in, curled up in a tight ball, died and all the bodily fluids were marinating the body, I had to go outside to catch my breath. While, holding my nose and yelling that the smell would surely kill me. Although my ear piece device was dangling from around my neck I hear a faint “hello”, “hello” with all that was happening in my anguish, totally forgetting that Merton was still on the phone. “What is

I put everything item from the deep freezer in a large trash bag and used three just to be on the safe side. Throwing away the food was the easy part, getting the disgusting water out of the deep freezer and repeatedly washing the inside of the deep freezer. Merton stayed on the phone with me the whole time during the impetuous cleaning ordeal I was going through. The smell was horrendous to me, knowing where the smell was coming from was a small relief. Wishing I was away at school and Merton was home with the surprise of finding the smell mystery. Merton said that he did not want the Jerk Chicken now, He would take me out for dinner instead. Cleaning the mess was well worth it and I did not have to