Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk

I agree - clean it up and get on with it.

But what if the lady of the house wakes up one fine morning, goes downstairs to wake up the boy of the house and with every step an odour - that can only be described as ass - becomes more pronounced. And when I say "ass", I don't mean a lady-like, well washed & powdered so that even her shit don't stink kind of ass. I mean a ridin' the rails hobo ass. The kind of ass odour that comes from using leaves (of a plant or newspaper) rather than Charmin' to wipe with. The kind of odour that comes from skid marks on top of skid marks, day after day, week after week, ripening. Yeah - you know what I'm talkin' about!! But it's permeating the whole basement - it's hard to pin down. A/C goes off, windows get opened and the boy is instructed to do a hard target search for forgotten snacks.
A few hours later the boy has cleaned a section of the carpet where he has admitted that he remembers spilling some milk a few days ago.

Okay good - it should get better now.

A few more hours pass, the hard working woman of the house comes back home and after getting a nice cold glass of water heads downstairs to knit & watch Y&R. Open windows have been fresh-airing out the house and all should be well with the world. You are an astute one, dear reader - the way you have picked up on my use of the modal verb "should". All thoughts of knitting were utterly banished as the smell of ass still hung in the air!! The boy claims no pertinent knowledge and has no viable suggestions.

With no idea what to do, the woman decides to go about her business - knitting, homework/shore supervision, dinner preparation & laundry, trying to inhale as shallowly and little as possible while in the lower level of the house. While mindlessly sorting laundry - I mean really, it takes almost no thought at all to sort whites/darks/brights - her eyes start to water. What could the boy have spilt on his shirt to make it smell like that? A few items later the air begins to ripple from the fumes rising out of the hamper.
edited to add: Remember the milk that had been split a few days ago? The boy sopped it up with a towel, then tossed it in the laundry hamper. And then put clothes on top. And didn't say anything. end of edit
The towel was a lost cause - right into the garage garbage, tied off and double bagged. The boys' clothes were washed in hot water with Javex Bleach-for-the-Unbleachables. Twice. They show no signs of their brush with Stink.

Should the woman shed a tear however, it will not be for the spilt milk. It could be for the loss of her favourite towel - once a thick, plush towel of soft pink and now a crinkled, sticky pink with greenish tinges. Truly a sad picture. The tears could also be from the stench of compressed soured milk (which we now know smells like ass) that had the strength to turn nose hairs & eyebrows to ash and peel paint. Fortunately the laundry room is unfinished and there was no paint to fall victim to the fumes. The tears may even be out of pity for the boy who seems to have been absent on the day that cleaning up spills was covered by the woman. And let there be no doubt in your mind, dear reader, that this lesson was covered!!

At this time you'll be happy to know that the ass smell is gone, the clothes are clean & fresh smelling and the woman has blocked her knitting (pics tomorrow Ada!!) and she will be going to bed. Even though it will be chilly tomorrow the windows will be opened again - just for good measure!!

And lest you begin to think that the woman is a deviant, she has not made a personal study of ass(es) and their odour(s). She is making ass-umptions based on conjecture and fictional literature.