119. What’s That Smell?

It was a warm, sunny day. She put a hat on to keep the sun out of her eyes. She needed to visit her bank. She walked down to the corner. There were four buildings at the intersection. One was her bank. Opposite the bank was a fast food restaurant. The other two buildings were a dry cleaner and an office building. Before she arrived at the corner, she could smell the fried chicken. The restaurant was open seven days a week, and the odor of fried chicken was in the neighborhood daily. She was a vegetarian. She used to eat meat and fish. But that was before she found a dead cat in her dumpster one day. Of course, she had smelled the dead cat before she opened the dumpster lid. Everyone knows the smell of dead flesh. She knew that something in the dumpster was dead, but she didn’t know what. Just in case it was a human (some people dump their babies into dumpsters), she opened the lid. She saw the cat. Flies covered most of it. They were enjoying their meal. She loved cats. She had two of her own. A week later at a restaurant, she ordered a hamburger. She took one bite out of it, and almost gagged. She spit it out. All she could think about was the smell of that dead cat. That was the day she became a vegetarian.