Poo juice

I've been so bloggy lately! And it's been awhile since I blogged about poop of any kind. I treat you, my friends, to this nugget of joy.

Jacob got poo juice on the couch. Lest you think this is the fault of cloth diapers or woolypants, know that he was in fact wearing a disposable diaper (due to a variety of incidents that I did not have much of a sense of humor about). It was not a huge spot of poo juice, and there was no actual poo-- just some diaper leakage. It didn't actually smell too awful, so I got out my fabric cleaner spray, scrubbed the cushion and finished with the ever-handy Febreze bath. This was at maybe... 6:45am? So we all continue our morning, eating cereal and yogurt and thaking baths... but the living room was starting to smell a little funky. I sniffed the couch, but I still thought maybe once it dried it would still be ok. I lit some incense. By about 8:30 the smell was intensifying, and I knew it had to be the couch cushion... so I stuck it in the laundry room and closed the door. We were going to Sears to get pictures taken this morning, so I figured I'd take care of it when we got back. Right before we left I decided to open the laundry room door so the cat could get in while we were gone... and the smell just about knocked me over. I literally gagged, and I am not so much a gaggy person.

Let me try and describe this smell to you. Start with a little boy who eats a lot of yogurt and cheese getting poo juice on something difficult to clean. Take the amount of cheese smell you initially imagined and double it. Now take that smell, put it in a plastic bag and leave it out in the sun for a week. Rub some garbage on it for good measure. Finally, invite a smelly hooker pirate into your house and have her rub her ass on it. This was the total effect of one couch cushion (which I moved out to the garage, and it still was unbearable). How could it be so toxic? How was it on a timed release? Questions for the universe, I suppose.
Back to the events. So I take my handy dandy carpet cleaning machine and put it on "heavy clean", use about a gallon of soap, scrub, rinse, repeat... and it still smelled like the above concoction, only with a hint of soap. Nothing worked, and I bet I worked on that cushion for 45 minutes. I noticed a zipper on the back of the cushion...

My guess is you are not supposed to take off your cushion cover and throw it in the washing machine. I don't know what those zippers are for, but I don't think it's that. That, however, is what I did. I did have some thoughts as to whether this could possibly be a bad idea, and it very well may be. But facts are facts: would I rather have a couch that looks like shit or smells like it?
The smell had seeped into the puffy batting stuff surrounding the foam cushion. Subsequent cleaning has failed to get the smell out of that either... I may end up removing that and hoping the smell hasn't made it to the foam. I don't know what will happen with the cushion cover-- it's still in the washer.

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where the valet has the "rampant, mutant B.O." and they can't get it off of them or out of the car? This is that. Only with poop and without a laugh track.