KYLE DOMINY: School day horror show: It came from the lunch box

This story begins on the last day of the previous school year. For lunch, my son had chicken strips. Ask me why I know and why that matters.

Because when this school year began, the remnants of that meal were still in his lunch container.

The day started pleasant enough for the first day of school. We were the picture of the perfect family, children getting ready for their big day, parents working in harmony to prepare a hearty breakfast and pack lunches. Little did we know our utopian morning would be interrupted when my wife, my poor, poor spouse who carried and bore my offspring, was subjected to a horror most objectionable.

She unzipped the lid of the otherwise unassuming insulated bag, which had sat undisturbed in the kitchen pantry for the better part of two months, and unleashed an odor that can only be described as hellish. The slimy chunk, collected in a plastic bag, surely was alive, mutated into some half-decomposed ooze creature. The beast had been waiting for its day of liberation for some time, planning a devious scheme to offend the human senses.

And offend it did.

The odor made its way around the room, causing the women folk to shriek, my son to flee and me, the pinnacle of modern manhood, to second-guess every decision I had ever made that would lead to this stink bomb being unleashed in my living quarters.

The fiery depths of Mount Doom in the desolate land of Mordor couldn’t destroy that lunch box, but a Hefty bag would have to do. To cut a long story short, the whole thing was tossed out. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to attempt to clean that roadkill lunch pail. Thankfully, there was a spare lunchbox, mine, but being a parent comes with sacrifices, so my only son didn’t have to resort to carrying a can of beans to school in a bindle like a hobo. But don’t think I wasn’t tempted.

The whole thing would have been a great prank had it been done on purpose.

After the pungent bouquet subsided and order was restored, the morning resumed, still pleasant, though more hurried because our distraction had wasted precious minutes, and everyone knows that time is not on your side when trying to get two kids out the door and go to work.

The moral of this story is: Don’t put off cleaning out your lunch box.

First days of school come and go and, in the big scheme of things, run out quickly. Parents do all that they can to hold on to those memories. Special outfits are purchased, pictures are taken and even special props and signs are made to mark the occasion. All posted to social media, of course.

But a rotten chunk of chicken meat in a forgotten lunchbox? I won’t soon forget that first day of school.

Contact Kyle Dominy at [email protected] or write to 115 S. Jefferson St. Dublin, Ga. 31021.