This is Deputy Digby Pancake. There are some things that I am good at. Smiling. Sleeping. Sleeping more. Eating. I’m really good at eating.

I am also real good at smelling and smelling it up. But Sheriff Brickle outdid me this weekend.

As good as I am at smelling up a place, all places and any place, when you are camped by a dump, you come to the conclusion that will not be able to outdo the dump in that regards.

But Sheriff Brickle is always in for a bit of competition and he really outdid himself this weekend. He went above and beyond. So good in fact, that it may become an obsession.

There we were. Happy to be back at the dump because we couldn’t find a campsite anywhere else in this Florida place. We were tired from the move, but found a spot in the big field at this park in Dade City that the nice people here let us park at again.

Boy Person remarked that perhaps the air quality was not the best. But that we would be ok for a bit. Until the whiff of unpleasantness took over the Big Blue Treat Wagon unlike ever before. Sure. We had been in the high winds of Kansas. The cold winds of North Dakota. The hot winds of the desert. But this. This.

If there had ever been a chance of the Big Blue Treat Wagon being powered by an alternative fuel, this would have been the time. Because the power of Brickle’s smell was beyond any grade on a gas pump.

Boy Person almost fell off the couch. Girl Person asked if it was the dump. Boy Person said if it was, they were gonna have to move again. Now. He looked at Brickle. Brickle didn’t look back. Brickle knew that his new fragrance was to be a mystery. But this was no mystery to anyone. There was a hazardous situation in this RV. And the dump was the least of our problems. Boy Person covered his nose. No help. Boy Person covered his eyes. Which were burning. No help. He resorted to standing. Maybe the air was better up there.

But no. Nope. Nothing helped until the cloud had dissipated. But just when you think a storm is over, well, it may have a second round.

This went on much of the night. And although Sheriff Brickle felt better by morning, the persons were a bit tired. The RV had been thru a storm of Brickle. When all was smelled and done, Sheriff Brickle arrested himself.

You see, the truth of the matter is this. You may think you have a problem. You may be irritated over some little inconvenience. But is the way that you react to it a worse smell?

You may think something is worse than it actually is. Often, there is humor to be found in the negative. Most often, persons can’t do that. But if you can, that can be a breath of fresh air. We all have control over what we breathe in. We can’t control others, but we sure can let our scent of positivity be a perfume. Even at the dump.

–Deputy Digby Pancake