Every morning I head west on 9th Street in Santa Rosa to Stony Point and then get on Occidental Road all the way to Sebastopol.

The 15 or so minute commute to O’Reilly could be considered one of the perks of the job. Once I’m on Occidental (a word which means “western” as opposed to oriental, which means “eastern”) and pass the last big housing development on the west side of Santa Rosa, I find myself literally in farm country. Or wine country.

I pass at least one winery on the way, Hanna Winery, and what seems like several vineyards, row after row of grape vines on rolling hills. I also go over the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which I know very little about other than what I’ve just read at the website above (apparently it’s the largest freshwater wetland complex in coastal Northern California). I hear it’s also popular among birders.

All this was true this morning, until I turned onto 116 heading toward O’Reilly and noticed a pungent, displeasing smell. Like I had literally evacuated myself. Like I had driven through rancid dogdoo which had somehow coated my car’s ventilation intake.

Usually these things pass, and I’m reassured that I haven’t actually run over someone’s pooper scooper. Except that after I parked and got out of the car, the smell was even worse. It was all around. Someone, somewhere has fertilized something and my beautiful idyllic commute was punctuated with a little too much pastoral reality.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.