A few Saturdays ago, Dawne and I had plans to attend the Salt Lake Temple together. We’d been to the gym in the morning and came to my apartment to change into our pretty clothes.

For some reason or another, I was in the hall longer than Dawne and my next-door-neighbor was taking groceries into her apartment. She looked up, surprised, and exclaimed, “Oh! You must be my neighbor!” in a quaint British accent. I returned the favor, only less cordial and Britishy. “Yes,” I replied, “I am. How are you? My name is Ashley,” and other sundry pleasantries. She said her name was blah blah blah blah blah—and though the blahs could be construed as an attempt to protect her privacy, I really and truly don’t know her name. And who could blame me? When are those Brits going to learn them some good English?

We continued in this fun exchange and she mentioned she’d never met me and didn’t know anything about me. I didn’t think this was particularly profound, as I’d never ached to meet her myself, and then there was the golden nugget of wisdom: “You know, I was in the hall a few weeks ago and I smelled something dreadful [nice, eh? "Dreadful."]. And then I thought to myself, ‘Self, [don't you love people like that?] I’ve never met my next-door-neighbor and oh, if something were wrong with them, I would feel awful.’”

I laughed and explained that some of the dear, sweet, very very very old and senile ladies on our hall like to experiment with their cooking and there can be some very odd and offensive smells caught wafting down the hall on particularly boring afternoons.

She got very serious and looked me square in the eye with an air of concern drizzled in consternation.

“No, Ashley, this smelled exactly like rotting flesh.”