Man killed roommate because of stinky feet

Roomate Killed over “Stinky Feet”

A Texas man is accused of stabbing his roommate to death because the man complained about his “stinky feet,” local media reports.

The two men rented a small bedroom in a Houston apartment from a married couple with a baby.

The mother and child were sitting outside Saturday evening when the men started drinking in their room, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.

They started fighting about the man’s “stinky feet” and the woman peered into the room to see one of the men holding a knife in his hands, said Sgt. M. Sosa of the homicide squad.

“By the time she got inside, he was on top of the other man,” he told the paper.

The women fled and called for help, and then the roommate “comes after her and says, ‘I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t mean to do it,’” Sosa said.

William Antonio Serrano, 22, was charged with murder.

The victim’s identity was not released. He was pronounced dead at the scene with multiple stab wounds.

(source)

“Devil’s Dung”

The proper name is “Asefoetida” (also Asefetida). To remember it, think (ass + fetid).

Ferula assafoetida, (family Apiaceae), alternative spelling asafetida (also known as devil’s dung, stinking gum, asant, food of the gods, hing, and giant fennel) is a species of Ferula native to Iran…Asafoetida’s English and scientific name is derived from the Persian word for resin (asa) and Latin foetida, which refers to its strong sulfurous odor. Its pungent odor has resulted in its being called by many unpleasant names; thus in French it is known (among other names) as Merde du Diable (Devil’s Shit); in some dialects of English too it was known as Devil’s Dung, and equivalent names can be found in most Germanic languages… (source)

Back in the days when herbal medicine, founded partly on myth and partly on fact, was the norm, a common practice among fishwives and farmwives was to mix a paste of asefetida resin, and hang it in a bag around a child’s neck to ward off worms, colds, diptheria, smallpox, and other noxious diseases. This practice probably has its roots in the antiquated idea that disease is the product of “humours” or “vapors” which arise from the earth – the preventative “rationale” being that one stink will ward off another.

The Smelly Cat Song

From Friends. One of Phoebe’s dubious creations, from a dubious show (imho).

Three, four…

Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat,
What are they feeding you?
Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat
It’s not your fault

They won’t take you to the vet
You’re obviously not their favorite pet
You may not be a bed of roses
You’re not friend to those with noses

Boiled Cabbage

I wouldn’t even care to guess how many writers have used boiled cabbage as a device to evoke images of poverty and squalor. It’s doubtless an unfair bias, because not only is cabbage extremely nutritious, but it has been eaten equally by rich and poor, the world ’round.

Regardless of that, boiling cabbage does stink. You know it for sure, when someone who writes about a dish of pig intestines he seems to have enjoyed, and in the same paragraph refers to cabbage as “sewage smelling”–

The other notable dish at Founder Bak Kut Teh is the Pig Intestines or “Hoon Terng”. It was the mild with a nice chewy texture. Unfortunately, I do not like cabbage in soup as it adds, to me, a foul smell and taste. Try boiling cabbage in your kitchen, you’ll soon discover a rather distressing smell emanating from it. That’s the smell I do not like at all. To me, the intestines alone would provide a good enough twist to the original broth without the sewage-smelling boiled cabbage. (source)

Dead Mouse

I suppose it’s passé, but if this is to be a compendium of the stinky, we cannot omit the dead mouse. There is scarce an odor on planet Earth like eau de dead rodent. Once you have smelled it, you can neither forget it, nor fail to recognize it when you smell it again.

Hot Bus Driver’s Trousers, circa 1953

New York City, August 1953. 90 degrees, 90% humidity. No A.C. Ill-tempered, 275 lb. bus driver. Is it any wonder that Alice, Trixie and Norton are hanging their heads out the window?