It was a decision I came to regret instantly. A plea to go down the back yard and fix the dripping tap on the "weed tank".
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The weed tank was the latest innovation in organic liquid fertilzer being trialled in our house, and if smell was a measure of potency, our lawn was going to stink it up this summer.
The feeling had grown, as it does each Spring, that said lawn wasn't growing fast enough and that we should turbo-charge our efforts. Don't mention the bloody drought (although I did, a lot).
Enter the weed tank. A new use for those mini water storage units purchased from Aldi all those years ago which had been blowing around the backyard going dry with neglect ever since the purchase was approved.
The directions were simple.
All weeds pulled out of the garden go into the weed tank, are immersed in water, brewed to extreme noxiousness, and the resultant vile juice poured back over the lawn.
Circle economy with Gardening Australia ambition balancing out ability, hopes and dreams of buying some superphosphate.
Thus I was called to repair the problem I was partly blamed for, if not the neglect, then surely putting the new tap purchased to repair the old one in backwards.
The next cry was "it's still leaking", delivered just as I got home from work. And yes it was still leaking, possibly because the plumbers tape I had wound the wrong way round the thread of the new tap I'd put in backwards probably wasn't working either.
Thus the decision I came to instantly regret. Plumbing. Determined to be a better man, I strode down to the weed tank and immediately identified the tap as the issue, which I promptly removed.
I then quickly identified the new issue as fecund weed juice gushing, Snowy Hydro 2-style, all over my outstretched arms, legs and anything else I could bung in the bung to stop the deluge.
Visually it wasn't pretty, but it was on the olfactory that the true damage was done.
Images of Shawshank crawling through 500 yards of proverbial were nothing to what I was now covered in.
Rotten fish, raw sewage, garlic, onions, a bath in cows urine brewed in a copper out in the Simpson desert - just some of the images that didn't do justice to the stench.
Searing stuff that defied nearly every Dr Google suggestion to remove bad smells. All this, just before sitting down for dinner.
Vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, stainless steel, rubbing in anchovies to make it smell better.
Nothing worked, but time, and steady sandpapering of the epidermal areas affected until there was no skin left.
Just raw emotion that next time I'm called to make a decision I'll instantly regret, I take five to consider.
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