(no subject)

Why didn't anyone tell me that paperwhites smell like ass!?

I bought some of those holiday growing kits, an amaryllis and a paperwhite, and was initially pleased because they grow fast and there's something really satisfactory about seeing plants sprout. Then little black flies started to zoom out of the substrate and I was informed they were fungus gnats, which can be killed with things like liberal application of parasitic nematodes (nature ILU), but in the meantime I banished them outside.

And watched the amaryllis stall out and the paperwhites shoot up and flower. "Yeah I made FLOWERS!" I crowed, and was sad that I couldn't bring them inside because they were full of bugs.

Today it was not full of bugs and dried out so I brought the paperwhites in. I went onto the balcony and noticed a heavy, cloying smell a little like cheap cleansing agent, but I didn't think much of it because the balcony frequently has unpleasant smells. Or perhaps the sickly sweetness of something rotting in the sun-- a heavy, musky smell that isn't "sweet" like you think of it, not the sugar-softness at the tip of your tongue, but the sort that hits the back of your nose and while your nose is going "wtf!?" your brain goes "yup, that's sweet."

Then I realized it was the flowers. "Well it should be okay, I'll keep them on the bench. Twenty feet away from the desk."

Tendrils of stench reached all the way across my gargantuan living room to crawl up my nostrils and die like a possum between the walls.

How do people allow these things into their house?