An Adlibby Post You Probably Missed

Well, I know we’ve all had a long week, but don’t go away! Libby needs help determining what the Sally-Jesse-Raphael that smell is… As soon as I discovered Adlibby-on-the-loose I was hooked on her unique blend of humor and sentiment. Enjoy. Oh, and can someone please freshen up the cheese platter (its getting a little sweaty). Thanks, friends!

What is that Smell?

What is that smell? Certain aromas call to mind a particular place in time, much in the same way a song can. Smells can make me hungry, particularly the smell of Italian food or fresh baked bread or chocolate chip cookies. Smells can turn my stomach — why? why? oh why, do I smell a pair of socks or underwear to see if they are clean? The motion is nearly automatic and almost completed when I realize what I am about to do — my brain says RECOIL — but often, my nose doesn’t get the message in time! Why?! Or that mysterious sippy cup that I bring to my nose fully expecting it to smell like spoiled milk — Why do I need to smell that?!

There is the skunky smell that I recently discovered in my car. Seriously — it smelled like a skunk. I admittedly have pretty low standards for my car during the summer (carpool during the school year keeps me a little more motivated) but this was too much even for me! I finally it tracked it to its source — a brown gooey concoction under the 3rd row of seats which must have once been chocolate milk congealed and mingled with the grease around the hole where the seat bolts into the car. Uuuuggghh!

You know how you hear about people being trapped and starving to death in their cars — well, that could never happen to us. We could survive indefinitely off of all the random bits of discarded food in my car. When the kids were younger, it was less obnoxious things like cheerios or cheese crackers which didn’t have much odor — but recently I found a petrified half of a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Seriously, it was as hard as a rock! If I’d thrown it — I could have broken something! A single french fry can smell up a car faster than one of those hanging air fresheners. Fruit snacks (while fruity smelling) turn to glue in a black car in 90 degree weather. Those babies may never come out of the door compartments. Have you ever smelled a half-eaten bagel with cream cheese after a week or two under a car seat? Trust me — you don’t want to know!

Children come with all sorts of smells that take me back to my childhood. The dirty dog smell of two kids who’ve been rolling around in freshly mowed grass. The smell of bandaids as I fix their boo-boos really takes me back. I keep an old metal bandaid box in my vanity drawer. I keep refilling it with bandaids because I LOVE the smell and the metal box keeps the aroma stronger than the flimsy cardboard ones they come in now. My theory is that it reminds me of some particular episode of love, sympathy and attention I may have received as a child. And crayons — my kids think I’m very strange because I probably spend as much time sniffing the crayons as coloring with them. They just roll their eyes at me. But I can inhale a new box of crayons for days.

Coppertone suntan lotion mingled with chlorine reminds me of those teen years spent living at the local YMCA pool, somewhere between the lifeguard stand, and the sugary smells of the snack bar.

Buttered popcorn brings me back to the summer that we saw Dirty Dancing 50 times! Seriously, we made it a goal! That was a good summer.

Every now and then I catch a whiff of Polo or Old Spice and I’m reminded of my College sweetheart. My heart practically aches when I smell that smell. And I’ve been over that boy for many years.

It’s funny how smells capture particular emotions and can catapult us back in time. But I’m glad that they do. They usually trigger memories for me that wouldn’t fit in any scrapbook.

See! I told you it wasn’t me. What noise? THAT WAS MY SHOE! (Isn’t cool how I’m at my party and in Florida? Omniscience…try it) Sheesh. Some people…Thanks Libby!!