Britt5091 Origins: The hottest, grossest, smelliest most gruesome commute I’ve ever had.

Welcome to Britt5091: Origins, where I dig up old blog posts I used to write for IGN’s community under the username Britt5091. Some posts may make you giggle, some may make your eyes bleed, and some may make you stroke your beard in a pensive manner. All you need to know is that these posts, no matter how terrible some of them may be, ultimately lead to everything I do now.

The hottest, grossest, smelliest most gruesome commute I’ve ever had.

July 28th, 2009

 

Yesterday evening I’m making my typical trek from work to home.

Let me set the scene. It’s about 6 in the evening and 95 degrees outside. My car, freshly washed, is glistening in the sun, I’ve got Metallica screaming out my speakers, and I’m going a healthy 65 mph. I’m on Interstate 5 just approaching Tacoma. And I’ve got a date with Mr. Playstation 3 when I get home.

Traffic is moving smoothly, and I’m thinking, hey, I’m making good time!

And just as I finish that thought (of course) the Hummer in front of me SLAMS on its brakes, giving me a split second to do the same.

Five seconds and whiplash later, I’m craning my neck to see what the hell the holdup was.

Stalled traffic, three lanes closed up ahead, lots of hazard cones. Greeeaaaat .Calming James Hatfield’s vocal chords for a minute, I finally found a traffic report on the radio that simply squawked ‘Debris by Tacoma Dome. Three lanes closed’. Well no shit Sherlock.

Then the smell hit me.

Now Tacoma is known for the ‘Aroma of Tacoma’ because of the local pulp mill. However, this smell was different. It smelt way worse, and I’m pretty sure if I had wallpaper in my car it would be peeling off. Go in a Honey Bucket, stick your head down the toilet, barf all over yourself and chill in there for a couple days during the summer. I’m pretty sure it would be a close comparison to what I was smelling.

Anyway, so I’m crawling along, observing all the poor folks that don’t have Air Conditioning. Not only is this heat sweltering, but waves upon waves of sour stink keeps coming from somewhere up ahead and those poor people don’t have the luxury of rolling up their windows.

In the time it had taken me to go 3 miles averaging 10 mph stop and go, the smell had become unbearable; a fine mixture of manure/shit/barf/pulp mill. As the Hummer in front of me merged, the gruesome, brown-splattered scene displayed itself in front of me.

No, it was not overturn truck carrying manure. Or a septic service truck.

It looked like it though. Brown, chunky goo that almost resembled wet mud had completely covered 3 of the 5 lanes on the freeway, for at least a mile. Two policemen were directing traffic into two different lanes. Another was beginning to hand out masks.

As we began to make our way through, the Hummer was splattering the gooey, chunky stuff all over my car and I’m trying to keep myself from gagging. As I’m making my way through this ‘mud’ I’m trying to get a good look at what I was getting my car into.

Then I see the first leg. Next to it is something that looks like a torso sticking out of goop. And a hindquarter. Chunks of fatty looking blobs are amidst the brown mess. I drove over something and it cracked.

Rendering: A process that converts waste animal tissue into stable, value-added materials. The majority of tissue processed comes from slaughterhouses, expired meat from grocery stores, the carcasses of euthanized and dead animals from animal shelters, zoos and veterinarians. This material can include the fatty tissue, bones, and offal, as well as entire carcasses of animals condemned at slaughterhouses, and those that have died on farms in transit, etc.

A mother effin RENDERING TRUCK spilled its entire load all over the freeway. I was driving through dead animal mush.

Apparently the moron who lost his load kept driving for another two miles, because good sized chunks of meat were sprinkled around the freeway well after the road cleared. A Jeep in front of me kicked up a nice fatty blob of meat. It bounced off my hood and SPLAT right onto my windshield. MY NEWLY WASHED WINDSHIELD.

My stomach was churning, which kinda surprised me, considering one of my biggest hobbies is hunting. I have no problem gutting a dear, bear, etc. But I guess it’s different than reeking rotting chunks of animal meat being spewed everywhere.