The Stench

If I told you what it actually smelled like, I wouldn't have any friends anymore. I'd be ostracized by everyone who knows me.
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I work late on Tuesday nights. Last evening, I was sitting at the reference desk and kept getting a waft of the most undignified smell. Such an odor has no place in a library, that's for sure. Linda, today, mentioned the smell of a locker room; indeed, it was akin to that.

Every time I'd go around the desk to go downstairs, the smell would become so powerful it'd almost knock me out. It was such an offensive odor, I didn't want to mention it to the student workers for fear it was one of them or a patron nearby in the library.
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This morning, I noticed the smell still. When I was helping a student at the reference desk at noon, I told her to scoot closer to me to avoid the stanky aura that was drifting over the fortress-like walls of the desk.

I mentioned it in a staff meeting today. In explaining where the stench was coming from I pointed out the area by the column that has plants and pumpkins near.

"Maybe we have pumpkin rot," someone offered.

And indeed, that is what we had. The most foul odor ever. Pumpkin rot inside. The entire bottom of the pumpkin was split open and rotting on the carpet.

Needless to say, it's been removed.