I'm familiar with the first 4 factors and how they can make the obvious difficult to do. Well at least you made it through, even if you lost the refrigerator.

I had a similar loss of fridge when we went on vacation one time and the power went off some time while we were gone and I had not emptied the freezer all the way as it seemed idiotic to garbage all that perfectly good food when we were only gone for 2 weeks.

If you had a shovel would it not have been the more hygienic disposal option, at about day 7/8 once you were sure the power was not coming back soon, to dig a 3.5 foot deep hole, put the fish in it and cover it over?

I think he described why he didn't get rid of the fish, some times the world is structured in such a way that you really can't handle the obvious things.

Also, whole burying fish may be logically obvious in this case, it is almost never the correct move in any other situation. Actions that defy common sense can be really difficult to commit, particularly in times when the stakes seem high. What if they buried it, the world was ending, and they somehow needed all that food? It's an easier call to make here than it was there.

Can you imagine that conversation with your neighbors?

"Tom, why are you burying fish in your yard? Don't you have better things to be doing like evacuating or collecting fire wood right now?"

"Nah, if I don't do this, my fridge might smell terrible in a week."