One Whiff, and You're There...

we have a soap in our office called "midnight pommegranate" and it smells like a gerbel's cage when wearing it.  I'm sure the nice people at Bath and Body Works didn't think "hey let's make a gerbil's cage smell!" and I'm sure nobody said "ooh, this smells lovely.  Like a freshly cleaned gerbil's cage. Let's buy the whole collection."  And so I can assume it doesn't really smell like that to everyone.  And it doesn't smell horrible to me, either... unless someone is wearing it.  And then... Gerbils.  (clean gerbil cages, though...)

I've been thinking about this for weeks now whenever someone washes their hands with it (luckily we have TWO soaps in the bathroom, so I've stopped using), and it's funny how smells make you think different things.

Georgia is currently covered in pollen.  It's true.  There was a front page article about it in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. That's right.  Top Story.  (thriving metropolis)

But, for reals, it's horrible.

If you notice... yes, you have to use your windshield wipers to see stuff.

AND... the pollen smells like the zoo.

Okay, that's not totally true.  But the squeegie to wipe it off totally does.

Blame the fact that people here have... umm... zoos in their back yard?  I have no idea, but I was washing my car windshield the other day and thought "Hogle Zoo."  And then my windshield smelled like it too.  I thought of how much I like the giraffes, but didn't like being stuck in there when we had to fill out paperwork about the zoo in 6th grade zoo day.  And about how sad I am that the hippos are gone now.  And about how I refuse to eat meat products purchased at the zoo (just in case).  But now my windshield is all yellow and normal-smelley again, so no more funky penguin smell.  (not that I don't like penguins.)

what was I saying?  Ooh yes, smells.  They bring back emotions.

"What are you doing?"
"Making a memory."
"Making a memory?"
"All my life, when I am quite grown-up, I will think back and remember how my Grandfather always smelled of pepermint and tobacco."  - The Parent Trap  (and that's the grandpa from The Parent Trap.  Isn't he dreamy?)

I found an old Lip Smackers and was transported back to Sr. Year of High School the other day.  I wore the perfume I wore on my wedding to a social last week (Falling in Love by Philosophy).  My husband's face wash makes me sleepy. I made a ham this week for the first time ever (more to come on that soon) and it smelled like homw.

Smells transport us to different times and places.  Some bad like a gerbil, and some good like your first kiss. 

So try smelling around this week, and see where you'll go.  You only have 5 sences in this world (unless you're lucky) so you should really use all of them.