Science geeks, take note
Every morning when I get to work and open my shoulder bag (yes, I'm officially an adult; as of August, I finally started using the shoulder bag I bought months earlier; I was hesitant to kick that overgrown schoolboy LL Bean look), this mysterious stink rises out of it, some gassy offspring of the peanut, lead and soggy paper conglomerate that established itself over time. The bag's flimsy velcro straps are apparently enough to suffocate the stench, and when I undo them and open the flap the chemicals belch out for a few seconds before evaporating in the air.
If this happened every time I opened my bag, at any location in any climate, and if the smell lingered, then the obvious answer would be that something unsavory is in there and I'd need to get rid of it (although it's a strange, almost ineffable smell, and therefore it would be hard to locate the exact source of it). But what makes this such a phenomenon is that the smell is only generated once a day, at the same place. Nothing odd happens when I open the bag at home, or when I open the bag a second or third time at work. It's just the first time I open it, and only at work. So I ask anyone that understands chemicals: why does this happen? Does the culmination of elements in my bag, while unremarkable on their own, somehow mix with the chemicals circulating through the air in my office, producing one quick stench storm, then subsiding, never to bother anyone again until the next morning's opening? I just don't get it.
If this happened every time I opened my bag, at any location in any climate, and if the smell lingered, then the obvious answer would be that something unsavory is in there and I'd need to get rid of it (although it's a strange, almost ineffable smell, and therefore it would be hard to locate the exact source of it). But what makes this such a phenomenon is that the smell is only generated once a day, at the same place. Nothing odd happens when I open the bag at home, or when I open the bag a second or third time at work. It's just the first time I open it, and only at work. So I ask anyone that understands chemicals: why does this happen? Does the culmination of elements in my bag, while unremarkable on their own, somehow mix with the chemicals circulating through the air in my office, producing one quick stench storm, then subsiding, never to bother anyone again until the next morning's opening? I just don't get it.