Kids and Easter Eggs

In the spring of 1999 our son was 7 years old. He was usually pretty good about putting toys and things away (once prompted, at least), so his room never got horribly messy. The biggest issue for him was bringing food into his room and not cleaning up well enough afterwards. I would vacuum in there at least once a week, and even though the [smelly] hamster lived in there in the plastic hamster house on his dresser, his room was clean and habitable. For the most part.

One day sometime in May (weeks after Easter) I walked into his room and smelled something I couldn't quite put my finger on. So we picked up all his clothes, and we put away all the toys, and we picked up and threw away all the trash.

The next day the smell was still there, so we changed his sheets, and we washed his comforter, and we vacuumed the floor.

The next day the smell was worse, so we changed the hamster's cage and gave it clean bedding.

The next day the smell was absolutely rancid.

I opened up his closet and searched every nook and cranny. I got on the floor and searched under his bed. I looked on his windowsill behind the mini-blinds. I looked under the dresser and behind the dresser. No matter where I looked I couldn't find anything that could produce such a smell.

Then I decided to open the dresser.

There, in the top drawer, was a lovely, colored hardboiled egg that he and I had decorated for Easter. Well, it used to be lovely anyway. At that point it was covered with maggots. The entire drawer was full of maggots. And the smell... Well, let's just say I will never forget that smell.

We took the dresser down to a dumpster and left it for the trash. (Funny side-note, someone came and took it at some point during the night. They sure were in for a surprise!)

It was so sweet to think he wanted to save that Easter egg, but from then on we always did a head-count when Easter was over!