Long Drive and Olfactory Contemplations

Clint and I are traveling, tonight. He is driving, and I am surfing the net and eating a handful of "Good 'n Plenty" that I bought at our dinner stop at Cracker Barrell. Black licorice, I love it, and offered Clint some. He doesn't like black licorice, he doesn't like licorice at all, he tells me. I think I knew that.

Well more for me, I pop another and think about my Dad. He hated the smell of licorice. He probably hated it because it made him vomit. When we were little, my sister once tried to sneak a piece into the car. She could just keep it in her mouth, and he'd never know.

We made it to the end of the driveway, where he stopped the car, opened the door, and vomited. His mother was the same way, we knew better than to take black licorice into my Grandma Stewart's house.

I have a long ride ahead of me, so I sit and contemplate which smells that I have a violent reaction to. Certainly there's nothing that makes me vomit. Oh, wait, I take that back. Years ago, there was a party in my house in which someone left venison steaks in a mini freezer, meant for another guest to take home. Said guest forgot, and the freezer was unplugged, post party. It was brought to my attention 3 weeks later, and since I was the only one home, the responsibility of moving them out of the freezer fell to me.

I threw up, and had to throw the freezer away.

But that doesn't count, that's too obvious. Plus I think I blogged that story already once before, so forget it.

Which smells make me nauseous? Wintergreen comes to mind first and foremost. Mom would spoon wintergreen-flavored pepto bismol down my throat when I had the flu as a kid, and I'd just throw back stinky wintergreen vomit.

A side-story! One time when Brian was a little kid, he asked me what a bismol was. I told him it was a game played with a bismol glove and a bismol bat. He was only 6, but had long since figured out that I could be full of crap, and he just gave me the stinkeye. If nothing else, I taught that kid how to deliver total b.s. with a deadpan face.

Paybacks really are hell. Two years ago when he was on leave he called me over to show me his new tattoo. "Its a swastika," he said. This was then me, moving across the living room:

He finally broke a smile when he realized I was seconds away from grabbing a melon baller and relieving him from any such tattoo. There was no new tattoo, he was just jacking with me. Hilaaaaarious.

Not. I digress. Wintergreen, don't care for it, and I obviously wouldn't touch pepto bismol with a 10-foot pole. I don't like the smell of watermelon gum. Or grape gum. Or strawberry "flavoring."

My father was a UPS mechanic, and someone once dropped a case of embalming fluid in the building, leaving the building smelling like roses. For years I had an aversion to the scent of roses, just for the neurological association to embalming fluid.

For some reason not too many more come to mind, I can think of more things that I like the smell of that most people do not: bleu and other strong cheeses, fish, strong curries, gasoline, solvent, ink. Maybe my fondness for strong smells makes me more tolerant of odors that offend others.

 Yummmmm

What about you? Which odors turn you green in the face? Which do you love, common and uncommon?  Why?

Keep us entertained with your comments; we have a looonnnggg drive ahead of us.