So I've got a great dumb thing our family did some 15 or so years ago and this should serve as a fair warning to any of you beyond members with younger families. Be forewarned, it's a speedog story.
Soooooo, around 2004 I was still under the employ of HELUS and was working out of a location in the NE close to where the NE Princess Auto used to be. During the warmer months I'd cycle to/from work and during more inclement weather I'd take transit and walk the last little bit. Anyhow, one morning I happened to notice a family of Great Horned owls, two parents and two youngsters with a nest in a tree about two blocks from where I worked.
Of course I told the family of this owl family and sure enough they all wanted to see them. So one Saturday morning we drove over and checked them out and as usual, my brainiac son spotted owl pellets on the ground beneath their tree and figured those would make a good show and tell type of item for school.
So we collected some owl pellets and took them home. As the wise parents we thought we were, we decided the owl pellets should be sterilized before they found their way to school - a logical decision. Now maybe the only moment of brilliance here was our decision to not sterilize them in the house, that was most certainly the one thing we did right.
Anyhow, into the barbeque they went on a cookie sheet at a very low temperature setting - the thought being that we cook anything to death that was in those owl pellets and also take any moisture out of them at the same time even though they appeared to be very, very dry. Fast forward an hour or so and a very wretched smell was starting emminate from our covered patio where we kept our barbeque - think wet dog mixed with vomit and roasting that mixture.
It was just absolutely horrible, must've taken a few days for that smell to disappear. The cookie sheet got thrown out and the barbeque got a complete scrubbing plus an extended highest heat setting burn. The owl pellets, well they came out as dry as popcorn farts and did make their way to school and like I said, thank the heavens we did not sterilize them in our oven in the house.
To this day, this is an experience our family can all look back at and get quite a few laughs from and even at the time, we got quite a few laughs out of the situation despite the most horrid smells we created. speedog story #1