One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble

When my students finish with their dissections, they dispose of the animals in a trash can labeled 'Tissue Waste' since they can't throw them in the trash (for obvious reasons). Because of the way they dispose of tissue wastes, students aren't supposed to put anything else in the tissue waste bin. As I was reminding them about this at the beginning of lab, I looked into the tissue waste container and saw that someone from the lab before mine had thrown some paper towels in there. I sighed, held my breath, and reached into the tissue waste bin to grab the paper towels and throw them away properly. One of my students watched me, and thought I was being a bit melodramatic.

Student: Was it really necessary to hold your breath while you did that? It doesn't smell that bad.

Me: It stinks in there. It's disgusting. You'd probably agree with me if you'd ever stuck your head down there and smelled it up close.

Student: Let's see. [Puts her head down by the barrel, sniffs a few times and then comes back up.] Smells like Thailand in there.