you smell like a flower -- of death.

No, really. There's a flower that smells like rot.

A giant exotic plant that has not bloomed in the Northeast in more than 60 years is ready to flower at the University of Connecticut's greenhouses. The "corpse flower" has the odor of 3-day-old road kill, and UConn botanists couldn't be more excited.

Once open, the spiked, bright red bloom even resembles rotting meat, a veritable welcome mat for the insects that pollinate it - flies and carrion beetles.

"It looks like something has died. It smells like something has died. It has some of the same chemicals that dead bodies produce," UConn research assistant Matthew Opel said Tuesday.

The corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) at UConn was planted 10 years ago and was part of a group of seeds brought to the United States from its native Sumatra by botanical explorer James Symon.

There's even a webcam to watch the blooming (which sounds pretty spectacular on its own). But is it really the same if you can't smell the decomposition?

In unrelated news, the dried mangos I am eating right now are yards better than the bad Mexican food we inadvertently had on the way home from work.

worm "Personal Jesus," Johnny Cash

namecheck Chris "I'm Sending You Something in the Mail, Finally" McLaren