Anytime I’ve been to the Oklahoma County Courthouse, I’ve noticed it always smelled like a public library, especially the ones frequented by unwashed perverts using the computers to piss their pants and watch pornography.
However, many county employees and their lackeys are finally catching a downwind breeze of this pure stink as the putrid smell of raw sewage is currently permeating the hallowed halls of the first floor of the Oklahoma County Courthouse, and I’m not just talking about the usual stable of unwashed lawyers and their stinking clients.
Crews said while they’ve been renovating, they’ve found damaged pipes in the nearly 100-year-old building.
"We discovered on the back side of this sewer pipe there was an opening that was releasing sewer gasses,” said Ponder.
Maintenance told KFOR the smell is especially bad because P-trap water dries out every spring and fall.
I just had to look up “P-trap” to make sure it was an actual term. It is.
Regardless, it seems as though the good people of the Oklahoma County Courthouse are acting like spoiled brats about the caked-on aroma. Growing up in Oklahoma City, from the cheap public schools to the impoverished rental homes, many times you’d have to immerse yourself in the foul scent until someone—anyone!—could fix it, usually at a much later date.
It was a quick way to grow up and, usually, throw up.
The fact that the city is making repairs now is actually a good sign, but that hasn’t stopped the usual people from their fecal-based hemming and hawing.
“A visitor to the courthouse was gagging over by the elevators because the smell was so bad,” said Mansker.
Maintenance crews said that’s a smell of discovery.
And, really, has the courthouse—or any other government building for that matter—ever smelled all that great? I remember taking to a family member to a court appearance a few years ago and noticed a slight gaseous odor that permeated the room; I’m pretty sure it was the natural scent of the great unwashed masses, gathered together in a barely air-conditioned room, but I’m sure you get the point.
Yeah, it made my eyes water mercilessly, but, like most things in this drained and depleted life, I grinned and bared it and moved on. The courthouse employees should probably do the same during the duration of this living skidmark, but then I guess there wouldn’t be a story.
On a less odorous note, it’ll be fixed very soon and the courthouse denizens can get back to their usual legal stink instead. In the meantime, hang out at a public library for a few minutes, if you can stomach it.
