Smell Ya Later

I smell. Now before you get the wrong idea, I'm not saying I stink - but, then again, I'm not saying I don't. What I mean is that I have a very sensitive nose. I can tell the age of a person sitting four rows behind me in the movie theater without ever having to turn around by how they smell. I can smell one-billionth of an ounce of cumin in a swimming pool-sized vat of tomato sauce. I can tell what someone had for lunch three days ago by the lingering stench of a fart they left on an elevator that I am unfortunate enough to step into.

Look, I don't want to have a sensitive nose - I just do. It seems every time I'm on an airplane some elderly woman with big dew-drop glasses and polyester pant suit squeezes herself into the seat next to me wearing the unholiest of perfumes. You know the type of woman I'm talking about - the one who wants to know every detail of your miserable life before she explodes into every detail of HER miserable life. They always seem to wear the cheapest of perfumes, which brings us to the math portion of the program:

If perfume (X) is cheap and pungent (Y), the more that person will drench themselves in it (Z).

X + Y = Z x 100

Okay, pencils down. It's not only annoying, it's downright unhealthy for the rest of us. The stench is so thick it almost takes the form of a solid and wrestles my nose into a half-nelson. I have actually asked to be moved to another seat on the plane because a woman's perfume was physically attacking me. I'd rather be stuck under the bus seat of two overweight gassy Packers fans on a cross-country trip home from a chili festival. Now, before you think of me as an age-discriminatory guy, I have news for you. Women of ALL ages are guilty of this. Don't get me wrong, I didn't say all WOMEN are guilty of this, but women of all ages, so please call off the dogs, Rosie O'Donnell and Jeanine Garafalo. I'm constantly bombarded by perfumes with names such as Adultress, Prick Tease and In Your Dreams, Loser. Don't even get me started on Patchouli oil, which smells like sweat from the crotch of a desert-dwelling hippie.

Hey, guys, you can stop high-fiving each other, because we (collectively) are no better. I can't exactly describe to you what Grey Flannel smells like, but every guy in the dorms my freshman year was provided a little vial of it in our welcome kits and it was applied liberally. The aroma would be so thick the walls and ceiling would be sweating that stuff. Even smells I genuinely did not mind, like Polo and Halston bring back images of drinking and vomiting (and drinking some more) binges. You see, the olfactory (get the dictionary. I'll wait.) sense is the one most tied to memory. Ever smell your grandmother's house? You'll never forget that smell for the rest of your life. I've been brought to my knees by the smell of spaghetti sauce that smelled just like hers. I've smelled perfume on strangers that old girlfriends wore, and it's taken 5-6 decent-sized people to keep me from tearing out that poor woman's throat.

I've been told there are five main scents that turn on a woman: cucumber, lavender, pumpkin, vanilla and melon. Your mileage may vary. Personally, I'll save the expensive colognes for the weekend Romeos. Just give me five minutes to roll around in the produce aisle. I live in fear that an old Bugs Bunny cartoon will prove prophetic where Smellavision will replace television. I'd never be able to watch an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" or "Golden Girls" (not that I have anyway, but one likes to have their bases covered). I don't like scented shampoos, soaps or toilet paper. I like my deodorant to be void of anything that would twitch my nose hairs. It's not easy, with commercials showing scantily-dressed bimbos throwing themselves at men, legs thrown wide like a bag of chips opened by a preteen. The marketing arms of these companies try to hook you into buying their smells with names like Chest Hair, Deep Thrust and Infinite Bulge. What self-respecting man wouldn't genuflect at the altar of manhood validation after all that?

This man, that's who. I have no problem with people who don't want to breathe second-hand smoke. For me, breathing second-hand perfume and cologne is no better. It's like walking into a spider web, face-first, and no matter how many desperate waves of the hand and body gyrations later, it's still with you. The only difference is you're not doing that jump-rope hop and finger wiggle trying to get that spider off you. The very same spider that's still sitting in the remaining part of its web thinking, "What an idiot."

Have you ever smelled food and knew exactly how it would taste? I know I have. As has been documented before, my mother tried to get me to eat sweet potatoes once (or was it candied yams? No matter, they're the same to me). I mentioned before I thought sweet potatoes smelled like the boys bathroom of a condemned middle school. I KNEW how they were going to taste by the mere smell of them. Long story short, I took the smallest of bites and projectile vomited all over the table. I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to food: if it smells like ass, it tastes like ass. That goes for all food. You could make a dinner of candied warthog anus, and if smells good, chances are I'll be back for seconds. Steak, which is one of my favorite foods, is pretty hard to foul up. Once, I had a steak delivered to me in a diner (yeah, I know, it was steak from a diner. I should have known better) and it smelled like crotch. I couldn't eat it. When I was paying my tab, I caught a look at the cook who had a very satisfied look on his face. It's a good thing I didn't order the Cream of Broccoli soup.

Ah, what's it all matter anyway? You're still going to wear you colognes and perfumes. You're still going to sit next to me on the plane and fart on my elevator. I'm still going to bitch about it and you're not going to care. Believe me, I know what you're going to do.

I have a nose for these things.

.