What happens next when you drop a full bottle of fish sauce in your house.

I was going to cook Thai food. I bought the bottle almost as an afterthought. We’re running out, right? No harm in getting another bottle. I paid, put it in the bag and drove home.

I arrived, hot and sweating. Lifted the bag by its handles. Upright, onto the kitchen counter and watched in horror as the fish sauce toppled, pivoted out of the bag, and — in slow motion — despite my desperate lunge — it fell and hit the kitchen floor.

And smashed.

Immediately you’re torn. Got to get the glass up quickly. Broken glass is dangerous plus there’s no way you can clean around it till it’s gone.

BRAIN: BUT THIS IS FISH SAUCE AND THE POOL IS SPREADING

Big glass bits picked up by hand. Smaller bits scooped.

The fish sauce puddle is widening.

Admission: Being a spoilt foreigner, someone else cleans our home.

When all this happened, Nga was mopping on the other side of the room.

She’s now come over. She’s just realised this is a bottle of fish sauce.

And we have a problem.

When we bought our apartment, the kitchen was just a sink and a hob. We added the counter. It fences off the space. An L-shape around the kitchen that cannot be moved.

Fish sauce is running underneath it.

Now Nga is scooping up the glass with the dustpan. I move to put a towel down to soak up the liquid.

I get “don’t you dare!” eyes. It’s mopped instead.

But what about the sauce under the counter?

I get a cloth. Thin enough to slide below it so that I can drag it along underneath. I’m on my knees in a fish sauce puddle. This is the best we can do.

The mopping is finished. I leave the scene.

I start working in the spare room. Aware that I completely smell of fish sauce. It’s seeped into my shorts and my t-shirt. It’s not horrific. In fact, it doesn’t even smell fishy. It’s a fuggy caramel.

Later when I go into the kitchen I notice a candle has been thoughtfully lit. I can no longer smell anything. But a day later a small, separate square of kitchen really smells strongly. Has it soaked in there and popped up here? Did the mop do this bit next? Is there just a smelly cloud that is especially noticeable here?

In my cupboard I have shrimp paste. I’ve used it once. Afterwards I screwed the lid on tight, wiped down the glass jar and put it back into the cupboard.

That whole cupboard now tastes of shrimp paste. Everything in it, including my breakfast cereal tastes of it too.

So what could a whole bottle of fish sauce do?

My wardrobe is basically a dozen black t-shirts and five pairs of khaki shorts. Today, three days on, the fish sauce smell is everywhere. Did the fish saucey t-shirt get rotated? How can it smell beyond a machine wash?

Or is it the whole house?

Or am I going insane?

Again, it’s not a bad smell. But then all smells become palatable, even enjoyable, over time. The smell of the glorious British countryside is cow manure. The beach is rotting fish.

Contrast those with “nice” smells. If my kitchen smelled heavily of popcorn, candyfloss or perfume I’d get queasy.

I grew up in a time when British people couldn’t help but dry heave or make jokes about sweaty socks when Italian waiters offered parmesan.

A Vietnamese kitchen should smell of fish sauce. It’s inevitable sooner or later this will happen.

Smash a bottle in your kitchen today. Embrace it. Take control.