Eau de Wet Canine

Rain. Lots of rain. Dogs and people soaked by big plops of water from the sky. My doggies take time to find the perfect spot for urinating or defecating – rain be damned. They run back in and do the doggie shake boogie, spraying water everywhere and then proceed to their spots on the sofa—evading my attempts to dry their footies. Hence, the wet dog scent permeates my home and nostrils.  Musty, and smelling distinctly stale and a bit moldy. My heart loves the wet canine scent even if my nostrils rebel. Roscoe and Molly are loved wet or dry.

Old Spice. My Dad used Old Spice Aftershave and the scent lingered in the bathroom and on his body. Old Spice meant that Dad was going out—-to church, to visit family or even square dancing. Dad was dressed up if he smelled like Old Spice. My friend says her alcoholic Dad drank Old Spice!  As a teenager in male company I smelled the men’s cologne Brut. The smell was younger than Old Spice and suggested a bit of “the bad boy”.  And we all know how attractive “bad “ boys are! These drugstore scents are part of my olfactory memories. Smells trigger memories.

My Mom got gift bottles of “Evening in Paris”-purchased with hard earned cash by myself and my siblings. When we were children, Mom always said we could get her “Evening in Paris”. Our local variety store had this “perfume” so that’s what we bought.  I put perfume in quotes because calling the scented liquid in the blue bottle “perfume” is a big stretch.  My trained nose says it smelled, and that is the best I can say for it. I was surprised to see that my more sophisticated cousins had perfumes like Chantal No.5.  Perfume can say a lot about someone.

If I pay lots for a bottle of perfume it better improve my image. That whiff of perfume when I get close should say how wonderful, confident and beautiful I am. Nothing has worked so far, so I quit wearing perfume. Never fear, there is always scented soap and body lotion, and the sticky sweet smell of dryer sheets whiffing into the air. No one has marketed perfume that smells like fresh baked bread, freshly brewed coffee or cookies just out of the oven. Why not? I remember arguments with my brothers and sisters about which farm animal shit smelled the worst.  This is a serious subject for farm kids everywhere. If you need to know, I picked pig shit as the excrement with the worst smell. 

So what are we masking with all the scents in our lives?  What do humans smell like? Dogs seem to know what others dogs smell like, but our noses have a much weaker sense of smell. We can smell some dangers, like the scent of gas or fire but mostly we go through our daily lives taking our sense of smell for granted.  Until we smell popcorn being made in the room next to us, or we sniff Play-Doh before we hand it over to our children.

So to make a long smell, short remember that “You stink!” is in the nose of the smeller.