As chance would have it, somewhere in the dark walking out to my car I stepped in something that smelled absolutely lovely, which I didn’t realize until I’d gotten back onto the New Jersey Turnpike and gotten a few miles away. As everyone knows, New Jersey is known as “the armpit of America,” and it has a lot of industry serving New York along the I-95 / New Jersey Turnpike corridor. It often smells, and it took me a few minutes to put together that the foul smell I was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by was coming from inside the car, not outside. I pulled over at the next rest area, which was mercifully only a few miles away.
Quickly getting out into the fresh New Jersey air, I inspected the damage; yup, shoe covered in dog poo, and unfortunately it was also all over my clutch pedal - stepping in it with my left foot only was the only luck to be had, because it meant my brake and accelerator were safe. I did my best to scrape off what was on my shoe, but it was the most concrete / adherent poo I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with, so inside the rest area I ordered a large coffee from the Starbucks stand and explained my situation to the barista, asking for trash bags and any cleaning supplies she had. No joy on the cleaning supplies, but she gave me several Hefty trash bags. With a bit more luck, the restroom didn’t limit you to blow dryers, so I grabbed a thick stack of paper towels from the restroom, wet them, and head out to my car.
I’d brought a second pair of shoes along, so I changed into them and threw my poo-shoes into one of the trash bags and tied it tight. Next, I started trying to wipe down my poor, brown clutch pedal, holding my breath while leaning into the footwell by the source, but it wasn’t doing much - the poo was sandy concrete. Regathering my plan, I went back inside and bought two large bottles of water - one to drink, the other to sacrifice. With a thick stack of paper towels across my footwell, I poured water on the clutch pedal to try and loosen the concrete poo, then scrubbing away with an even thicker stack of wetted paper towels.
After several trips in and out to refill the water bottle, blatantly steal an obscene amount of paper towels, and repeat this process of drenching and scrubbing, over the course of over an hour I finally got the clutch pedal’s stainless steel and rubber pads exposed and all traces of poo eliminated. All traces except for the smell, at least. The smell was mostly gone, except for what had permeated the cabin itself, and whatever was left on the floormat. I disposed of all the paper towels in one of the Hefty bags, and threw the floormat in another, tightly tying it shut with the poo-shoe-bag inside, and threw those in the trunk, hoping the smell wouldn’t penetrate the bags, but it was so pungent I truly was worried the bags might not contain it.
After sanitizing my entire arms inside, I finally sat back down in my driver’s seat, pushed the clutch in, and started my car back up at almost 2AM - remember, I still have ~4hrs driving ahead of me at this point, when I’d expected to already be home for several hours by now. Sniff test: Only a whiff of poo-crete every here and there; I’d gotten it good enough to drive the rest of the journey home.
So off I went again - I was pretty much the only car on the road the entire 250mi home, and I finally arrived home as the sky was beginning to lighten as the sun approached the horizon. Before I finally got to get some sleep, Alyssa Facetimed me as she was waking up and had me say goodbye to Hennessy since I hadn’t been able to in person - since I was gone by time she got back, she didn’t know where’d I’d gone and was depressed and looking around for me constantly, since I’d become her best friend and sleeping buddy from day one. This would actually continue for several weeks, and she was so depressed I was gone she stopped eating. A few days later I literally had to Facetime the dog to tell her to eat, at which point she began eating again. But now, to this very day, she will look at me on Facetime, and then snort, flipping her head away in a pout when she sees me, because she still feels betrayed I didn’t say goodbye in person - I am not making this up. Look pup, I tried to, I wanted to, I even delayed my departure thinking you’d be home sooner - you’re still my pupper.
