We were living at our Brianholly Drive home in Valrico, Florida, I was home and Bonnie received a lady friend visitor whom I believe she knew only casually. They met and sat in our living room, which was just inside our front door.

The lady had brought her younger son with her, and the son was somewhere between four and six years old, as I recall. The ladies talked, and the son roamed around a bit and played with some toys that his mother had brought with them. I was at the back of the house and had introduced myself when the lady came in and then had gone back to whatever I was doing while they talked.

I went back into the living room for some reason, perhaps to ask them if they wanted something to drink. While I was there I noticed a particularly disgusting smell. Wow, the smell was obvious to me, though there was no indication from Bonnie or from her lady friend or from the young boy that anything was amiss, so I went back to whatever I was doing.

But I had to check again, and so I ventured into the area for some reason and - sure enough - that ugly smell was still there. About the only thing I could think of was that somebody in that room had a very serious - let us say - gastrointestinal problem that was being politely ignored by the other persons there.

Eventually the lady and her son left, and I got the ask Bonnie, “What was that smell?” And Bonnie really had not been that aware of the smell until I pointed it out. Interestingly, the smell was still there.

Yikes, had the son left a pile of something in our living room? So I searched. And what did I find but a small, decorative tin box that was pretty much out of the way but now tipped over with the lid ajar. Inside was the remnants of an Easter Egg, hidden there more than a month ago and never found. The egg had naturally decayed but the smell had been trapped inside until the little boy, in his roaming, must have tipped it over. And thus the mystery of the stinky living room was solved.

My apologies to anyone whom I had mentally accused of having gastrointestinal problems.