Bizarre Smells As Happy Triggers

[madwriter]

Not long ago I was walking to the downtown post office--one of those exercise days in which the walk itself is usually more important than whatever I may receive in the mailbox (unless it's an acceptance, a contract, or a check!)--and as always I took the route that runs parallel with the railroad tracks. That particular day some men were working

Comments

[whingnut]

your music for this one really should've been "My Many Smells" by the Dead Milkmen.

Stinky Boy's dormitory smells like mischief and is a harbinger of disgrace. Don't ask me how I know this.

[madwriter]

I suppose dead milkmen would have many smells, especially if their truck was still nearby...

[feonixrift]

Willow bark, which I've been told smells like moldy piss, but to me it smells like sweat lodges in the desert.

[whingnut]

I feel sad for your friends who've had occasion to run into enough moldy piss that they know what it smells like.

[feonixrift]

Personally, I suspect piss can't mold, but as I can smell the resemblances to both substances I rather sympathize with their position.

[nugirlontheblok]

I like the smell of sulphur fumes- ugh!! Reminds me of a wonderful trip to Rotoroa in New Zealand as a child and a visit to the Devil's Kitchen!

[shalanna]

!!My nose is running after just reading about all this stink!! *GRIN* I can't think of any smells other than good ones (vanilla, baking chocolate chip cookies, baking bread, gardenias, wet Pomeranian . . . well, maybe that one is an acquired taste, er, smell) that make me have happy thoughts.

Maybe swimming pool chlorine, for bringing back memories of long summers at the pool when I was a preteen. MAYbe.

Y'all are weird, but then so am I. . . .

[madwriter]

Oooh, yeah, I forgot about chlorine. :)

[alexfiles]

Cabbage cooking makes me think of my mother and grandmama's cooking. They're Czech, and so there's a heavy Slavic and German influence. Lots of good memories there.

Dirt and rotting leaves makes me think of forests I've lived near and loved; the Black Forest, when I was very young and we lived in Stuttgart; some pines near our home in Louisiana, when I wasn't much older; and tiny woods here in the Texas hill country, where I once thought I saw elves when I was 12 or 13.

Tiger balm makes me think of Grandmama, too; she seemed to think it had nigh-unto-magical healing properties. It is pretty good stuff for bruised muscle and bone.

[madwriter]

Speaking of grandmothers and nigh-unto-magical healing properties: rose hip tea reminds me of my grandmother, because her mother thought it was a cure-all for darn near everything. I don't like the stuff, but the smell is a nice trigger.

[madwriter]

(Or maybe it was camomile that had the miraculous properties. Either way...)