Signs You Live in a Small Town

We live in town who's population has doubled in the last 10 years.

The population is now roughly 11,000.

Granted, we literally live over the city limit from Colorado Springs, population somewhere around 400,000, but technically, this is a small town.

Last week, we had a dinner mishap. We had thawed a turkey breast, and Eric had put it overnight in the smoker I bought him for his birthday. After an overnight and a good chunk of the day, he decided to finish it in the oven.

I got home from work and wondered what nearly dead roadkill had crawled its way into our house. Eric, to his credit, doesn't have quite as sensitive sniffer as I do, and had had his head about in the smoker, so all he was smelling were the hickory chips.

But it was bad.

We took it out of the oven, and, still optimistic, tried to slice the turkey.

It was filled with rotten mush.

Rotten, stinking, mush.

I don't have a strong gag reflex, but that about did me in. I bagged it, and took it directly to the trash bin in the garbage. We went out to dinner that night. However, when we got home, to our horror, we discovered that the devil bird smell had permeated the garage. The smell was still terrible inside, despite the open windows, heavy air Febreeze, and fans going. The smell disappated inside after I scrubbed the sink, counter tops, and kitchen floor, and Eric lit every candle around. However, the garage remained a danger zone, even though the garbage can was now outside, so we kept the door open for a while. We apparently forgot to close it, and went to bed.

In the morning, I found the garage door closed, and this on the driver's side of my car:

If you can't read this, it says: "Garage found open, unable to contact residents." Time stamp, 3am.

The police came by, saw our garage opened, were concerned, and closed it for us.

For the record, this has never happened anywhere else we have lived. I think I'm liking this small town business. Thanks Mike Case, of the Monument Police Department!