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Up from the clothes chute

Who knows? Making sense of scents

By GEORGI DAVIS
Published April 10, 2005

Thank goodness March Madness is finally over. My husband and I have spent more than a month watching TV in separate rooms and our sex life has dwindled to practically nothing.

I really can't get into a tournament when I don't know the teams and really don't care who wins. I relate basketball games to when I was in high school. I liked going to the games. They were exciting and the fans were supportive, some overly so. Parents would scream at coaches and thump their feet on the bleachers. Some parents even yelled at their own sons!

The games were played in the middle of flu and cold season and the germs were rampant. Fans sneezed and coughed in each others faces. If you weren't sick when you got there, you were when you left.

What I remember most was that the gymnasium reeked of perspiration. It's funny how we associate places and memories with smells. I think of the ocean and the great smell of the sea breeze. It is so wonderful that manufacturers have tried to imitate it in candles and cans so your house can smell like the great outdoors. You can buy canned or candled citrus, linen, blueberry, apple, coconut, cherry or pine, to name a few.

As a child, I remember my classroom at school. By noon, the room was filled with the smell of warm bologna and oranges. Everyone brought their lunches and put them in their lockers in the room. After recess, you could smell the woolen leggings drying on the heaters.

Today we are obsessed with smells. The grocery stores are filled with candles and air fresheners in so many different aromas that it is hard to choose. I have a friend who has so many candles in her home that you would think it was Methuselah's birthday!

My favorite aroma is vanilla. It reminds me of my grandmother's cooking. You can even buy shampoo in so many scents that the no-seeums love my hair!

Some entrepreneurs have even made a living on aroma therapy. I have been told not to wear anything with a lavender scent. It supposedly halts the sex drive. (Good thing to remember.)

Which leads me to thinking about how these different scents affect different people. We have candles, air fresheners and bath soaps that are supposed to calm us, awaken us, revive us or energize us. I once went to a singles dance wearing my favorite perfume, White Shoulders. I don't know if they make it anymore. I was dancing with a handsome man when suddenly, he was gasping for air. We had to call the paramedics. As it turns out, he was allergic to the smell. He never asked me to dance again.

I have another friend who is allergic to musk. You just never know how a smell will affect you!

There are some people who hate the smell of cigarettes or cigars but will sit in front of a campfire and reek of that smoke smell. I, for one, like the natural smell of clean sheets that have been dried in the fresh air, onions cooking on the stove, an apple pie in the oven.

Whatever your favorite scent is, I bet it's not the smell of skunk.

Thought for the day: When it comes to smells, only the nose knows.

Georgi Davis moved to Florida after retiring from teaching in Ohio, and she really misses the hustle and bustle of children and grandchildren.

[Last modified April 10, 2005, 00:39:14]