Smells like middle-aged spirit!
Mmm...I know that smell...that's the smell of my tribe. Stinky, but familiar, it's a smell that lets me know that everyone around me is looking out for me. I first noticed this kind of tribal smell when I was a kid and my dad would take me to his workplace at the army base. Everyone and everything there smelled like canvas, coffee, and tobacco (pipe tobacco, not those stinky chemical-laced cigarettes). After a while I guess it seeps into your pores and becomes a part of you. Anytime I get near the inside of a military installation, It reminds me of my dad (he's still alive BTW).
I'm starting to pick up a tribal smell of my own. Mine comes from my jiu-jitsu class. It smells metallic, of blood and sweat...and something else. I'm pretty sure that "something else" is a bacteria that we've all communicated to each other. It's on everything, my skin, my training clothes, and it doesn't come out. I can smell it past the lavender dryer-sheet perfume and my deoderant soap. It's a blend of smells from everyone in my class. We sweat and bleed and hurt together and share a bond that doesn't wash away.
I'm starting to pick up a tribal smell of my own. Mine comes from my jiu-jitsu class. It smells metallic, of blood and sweat...and something else. I'm pretty sure that "something else" is a bacteria that we've all communicated to each other. It's on everything, my skin, my training clothes, and it doesn't come out. I can smell it past the lavender dryer-sheet perfume and my deoderant soap. It's a blend of smells from everyone in my class. We sweat and bleed and hurt together and share a bond that doesn't wash away.