I spilled some protein shake down into my gym bag and the smell finally got so bad I had to dump all the contents and clean things up. It was really manky!
I am a very organized person. In fact, I do personal organizing professionally for total strangers who want their stuff straightened out. But I have my blindside like everyone else. There are a few things I carry around all the time and just totally overlook the absolute mess going on inside. Case in point – the spousal unit bought me a new travel bag for my birthday. My old one finally was too far gone to make another trip. So I now have this cool new Filson carry on duffle that will probably last me until I am too far gone to make another trip. But I put the new one aside for about a month because I knew the transfer process would involve several layers of detritus going back many years and many, many trips.
I finally got that sorted out this weekend because it had been pouring down rain for 4 days and I had done just about every other thing I could do inside. I pulled out all the corkscrews I’ve been accumulating (the ones NOT confiscated by TSA), old hotel receipts from all over the place, unmarked keys, travel size toothpastes that are so tiny you need 6 of them for a weekend trip, some really crumbly protein bars, a pair of headphones that don’t work, a handful of international plug converters for various countries, and some of those white cotton travel socks the airlines give you when they strand you overnight somewhere.
Most of this stuff was thrown away with the exception of the travel converters and the corkscrews. My younger son once commented as he rummaged through my bag looking for a snack that he wouldn’t want to be stuck with me and my travel bag when the zombies come. Apparently he wasn’t impressed with the corkscrews. I think he was starving and was searching for something a bit less nebulous and slightly more useful in the near term.
So the gym bag contents looked like this:
The offending smelly objects were some gloves left over from cold weather, a headband, and some boxing hand wraps that smell pretty rank even without being saturated by a spoiled protein shake. There were also an inhaler from Jan 2014 when I had bronchitis, candy from a goofy Crossfit workout in Halloween 2013, band-aids, jump rope, gym cards, and another bunch of old schedules and receipts.
I gave the bag a shot of Febreze once it was empty and threw everything fabric into the wash. Everything else was tossed.
After re-loading I think I am good for another couple of years until this bag wears out or has another drink mishap.