Death and burning: a weekend getaway to the Oregon coast...

My friend's boss has a cool-ass vacation house on the Oregon coast, up high on cascade head overlooking the ocean. It was built in the early 70's, and is a "pole house" (sort of like a really fancy tree house), with seven levels all snaking around a central stair, looking out over the living area. It's EXTREMELY difficult to photograph the interior, but here are a couple of pix to get the general idea across.



Anyway, my friend Carol invited me, my husband, and our friend Robert out to the house for the weekend. Since Robert had never been there before, my husband drove separately with him after he got off work, and Carol and I headed out early to get started on our beer-drinking.

When we arrived, everything appeared to be in order, but when we went to put the beer into the fridge, we realized that whoever had been there last had mistakenly cut the power (a big no-no). Everything in the freezer was ruined. Carol found the electrical panel and flipped the power on, and simultaneously the furnace kicked in. There was a brief moment where all we smelled was the acrid stench of burning hair, followed by the worst fucking smell I have ever experienced. It was definitely something LONG dead, and it was somewhere in the bowels of the house's heating system. We began retching uncontrollably, so bad was this smell. "TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!!!" I screamed between gagging fits, as Carol frantically clawed at the thermostat. "OPEN THE WINDOWS! OPEN THE WINDOWS" she screamed back. With one hand cinching my nose tightly shut, I raced from level to level, throwing open windows, and opening every single door. We met on the lower deck to catch our breath, and plan our next move. Meanwhile, every single fly within a 5-mile-radius caught whiff of our situation, and zoomed into the house through the open doors. The place was now a stinking, buzzing nightmare. Time for some beer.

After the beer, I fashioned myself some noseplugs by smearing carmex on some foam earplugs and ramming them up my nose. Then we covered up every single heating vent in the house (and fuckin'-A, were there a shitload of them), and sprayed the fuck out of the place with Glade Outdoor Fresh. I called my husband, and told him to pick up as many of those little green Christmas tree thingies that you hang in your car, and the strongest scented candles he could find. There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and then he mumbled something like "…..maybe I'll just stay home this weekend", after which I threatened him with divorce.

Somehow, we managed to make it livable, although we had to rely on the fireplace for heat. And a LOT of beer. I still don't know what happened to all of the flies; they just seemed to disappear. Hmmmm…..