Got Milk?

The other day, as I was putting the groceries in the trunk, I accidentally bumped the gallon of milk on the lid hinge. I checked the container and it was just a little dented. No milk spilled out so I continued putting the groceries in the trunk.

When I got home and was taking them out, I realized one of the bags was dripping! I checked inside the bag but found nothing leaking - but there was milk in it!!!! Oh no! The plastic bin I use to carry groceries home was half full of milk. I checked the gallon container and, sure enough, there was a slit in the corner at the bottom. I must have hit the bottom corner, not the top corner. The top corner dent had nothing to do with this mess! There was less than half a gallon of milk left.

I had to carry dripping bags into the house then wash practically everything before I could put stuff away. I had to open some of the cardboard containers and transfer the items into something else. The cardboard was soaked. I had to wash the eggs - they were covered in milk-soup. The vegetables were milky as were all the items in the bags on that side of the trunk.

After I got all that mess cleaned up and put away, I had to clean up the drips on the kitchen and porch floors. Milk spots are very hard to clean up after they've dried. I finally had everything cleaned up and now it was time to tackle the trunk of the car.

I took out the plastic bins, washed them and sat them in the sun to dry. That's when I noticed that the bin where the milk was had a crack in one corner. Any milk that leaked into the bin had leaked out and soaked the trunk carpet. I sopped up as much milk as I could and got the foam carpet cleaner out. I foamed it and used a scrub brush vigorously to get rid of the every increasing foul smell out of the carpet.

Finally satisfied, I reloaded the trunk and slammed down the lid. Little did I know!

The next day, as I was driving into town, I smelled garbage! Did I forget to take the garbage to the dumpster? No. I finally realized it was a sour milk smell. When I got home I opened the trunk. Phew! I don't think I've every smelled anything so rank before. I had to take everything out of the trunk again. I pulled up the carpet, opened the area for the spare tire and THERE IT WAS! The milk had spilled down into this compartment. I took out the spare and found curdled milk all over the tire, all over the bottom of the compartment and all over the underside of the tire "cushion" - a circular piece of foam the tire sits on. It looked like unfinished cottage cheese. The smell was enough to turn my stomach.

I scrubbed the tire with a scrub brush and dish washing detergent. It had milk clots in the tire treads. I took the cushion out and scrubbed it, too. Now I was down to bare metal car frame. I squirted dishsoap on it and scrubbed it the best I could. It finally started to smell like a car again.

The carpeted sections were still smelly. I used the hose on them until the water ran clear. But now they were soaked. I couldn't put them back in the trunk yet. The day was overcast and we had intermittent rain showers. I finally took the largest (and smelliest) piece onto the back porch and sat a fan in front of it to help dry it.

When I woke up this morning the first thing I noticed as I came downstairs was the sour milky smell from the porch. Rats! It still smelled horrible. I had to take it outside because we were having everyone over for Father's Day lunch and I had to get ready for church. No time to do anything about it now. While I was in church, Jimmy used some different cleaner on it and left it in the sun to dry. It seems to have done the trick. We'll find out, won't we?

One of the reasons I got the plastic bins was so that I could safely carry liquids home from the store - milk, bleach, laundry detergent - but my greatest fear was the bleach. I never really thought much about the milk. Milk is definitely the worst. I also never thought much about a little hole in the corner of the bin.

Where's the duct tape?