Of c, I like music, but I’m actually more into touch and scent than sound. My musical ear isn’t exactly fabulous. I’m not tone-deaf by any means, but I’m not one of those people who can plunk around on a piano and figure out how to play any tune you hum. Nope. I need sheet music to play by, and I can’t even sing melody if I hear harmony droning in my ear.
But I like the smell of things. I like the way different houses and different people have their own unique scent print, like a fingerprint. I like the lingering smell of shampoo in hair, and I love the scent of snow and summer mud and cut grass and sautéed garlic. I like the smell of chlorinated pools and suntan lotion and baby’s skin (milky and warm and kind of sour).
Yeah. All of it.
But I realized the other day, while inhaling the distant scent of diesel fumes, that some of my favs are kind of… odd. Here are my unusual favorite smells:
- Cigarette smoke. Yup. I think because none of my relatives or family friends smoked. I only ever smelled it while traveling or going out to eat, so the associations are still pleasant. I like it.
- New plastic—especially the smell of brand-new doll’s hair. I remember getting dolls for Christmases and taking them out of the box to bury my nose in their hair. It’s an exciting, new sort of smell.
- Skunk. Not up close and personal, and not even on a dog that’s been sprayed, but you know the smell when you’re out driving late at night and suddenly the vents are kicking out faint skunk odor and you know that somewhere along the road a skunk got run over. I kind of like it. Makes me think of long car trips.
- Horse barns and distant manure. Definitely not pig manure, which is sharp and almost acidic. Just the faint smell of horses and horse manure. From walking through a barn or down a street in Mackinac. It smells warm and summery and safe to me somehow.
- Truck exhaust and gasoline: Smells like vacation or my Dad’s work clothes.
- Dogs. Not the musky wet dog smell, but the actual smell of the skin and fur, deep down. It smells like picking out a new puppy after not having a dog for years. You forget what they smell like until you get a new one and cuddle with it.
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of smells I don’t like. Cat breath, for example, is one of the FOULEST known to man. Beware of yawning cats.
They smell like the rotting corpses of worm-infested mice.
Not cool.
