[NSFW] It's dirty work, but somebody's got to I will do it.

Last year after being away on holiday for 2 weeks, we came home to find a dead pigeon in our back garden next to the back door. The smell was terrible and it was swarming with maggots.
I was the only one who was willing to dispose of it.
Urgh, it was disgusting. Mainly because of the smell.

Okay, this is just weird. I was having a flashback this morning during breakfast (yum!) about a work situation from years ago much like @Crumpet‘s—now I know why! lol

I was a (temp) receptionist for an RV dealership out in the country. Country setting = mice, and we had ‘em. Someone had put down poison, and one of the poor things had died, it turned out, behind a filing cabinet near the reception area. The “professionals” in the place wrinkled their noses, muttered about the smell, then swaggered off; the office girls “ewwww”‘d and fluttered their manicured hands helplessly. So I grabbed a latex glove from the maintenance area, moved the cabinet by myself, and retrieved the poor thing (whose tiny claws had dug into the berber in is death throes).

Having grown up in the country, I’ve done my share of fielding dead animal bodies (wild and domestic), so while it was indeed gross, it was also just one of those things that needed to be done.

One summer I was the night janitor at the on campus dental clinic. This was before AIDS and any concern about virus transmission from body fluids. I had to empty and re-line all the trash receptacles and clean up any little mouth sponges or wipes that were covered with blood and saliva. We had kitchen gloves to wear, but it was gross at times.

I could do that because I was a janitor at an office for a small company a friend’s dad owned. I used to have to clean the lady’s room. I think all the women in the office had their periods at the same time, and they never wrapped up their used Kotex and tampons, just put them in the little metal mail box thingie by the toilet. That’s how I learned women could be slobs too.

@Crumpet Yeah, terrible smell, but how did it taste? :-)

@peridot Your sympathy for the little unfortunate rodent is delightful, given that you drew the lot of having to dispose of it.

@zenvelo No class of humans seems to be exempt from occasional slovenly behavior.