Sweet Stench of Victory

I open the door of the Forester to start loading up for our mini-road-trip, and the stench hits me like brick to the nose.

"Oh my god," I gag, almost dropping the diaper bag.  "Why does our car smell so awful?"  I snort to clear my nasal passages.  "Nathan!" I yell.  "What did you do to our car?"

"What?" he wanders down off the porch, arms laden with camera-gear.  "What are you talking about?"

"It smells like... like..." I gesture impotently, and he opens another door.

"Melon," he says, confused.

"Huh, yeah,"  (I should note here that while I do enjoy eating melons, I do not generally care for their scent, and it was at this point that I realized I may have been over-estimating how disgusting the smell was to the average person.)  I glare at him anyway.  "Why does our car smell like melon?"

"I don't know," he seems genuinely puzzled.  "Maybe Neeps dropped a piece?"

"We've never given him melon in the car," I am now opening the remaining doors and scowling at floorboards, looking for the nasty little culprit.  Nathan opens the hatch in the back, dutifully checking around the cargo area.  "Did you buy a melon while you were grocery-shopping yesterday?" I ask.

"Well yeah," he says, "But it's not in the car!"

"Well it's not inside," I say.  "Because I unloaded those groceries, and there was no melon."

"Babe I don't' know what to tell you.  There is no melon in this car."

"I would bet you money there is a melon in this car!" I yell as I run into the house to prove that there's no melon in there, either.  (Me being willing to bet money is a sign of just how certain I am, because generally speaking, I don't endanger the money.)

I am correct.  There is no melon in the house.  But even as I've been going over counters and into fridges, Nathan has been diligently re-checking the car, because he knows my nose doesn't lie.  And yet still- no melon.  We stand there, staring at one another, at a complete loss.

Until.

"Oh crap! I know where it is!"  Nathan scrambles back around to the cargo area and pulls out our stroller.  My stomach sinks as I realize what must have happened, and sure enough, there is a Suspicious Bulge in the middle of the folded-up contraption.

"Oh man," I whine, envisioning crushed, sticky, disgusting-smelling melon all over our lovely stroller, and the cold, cold hosing-down that is sure to follow.  But when Nathan unfolds it we discovered we have been Spared: the melon is merely bruised, not broken.

"Well," I say, satisfied to have been Proven Right and perhaps wishing I'd actually gotten my husband to wager a few bucks, "I guess we'll be bringing this with us to the party."