Both sides of my family have a more exacting sense of smell than the average person. We can identify
gas leaks long before most other people (and get incredulous reactions from the gas company -- "you shouldn't
be able to smell it when it's that faint"). My brother, when tapped on the wrong shoulder as a trick, can actually
smell his shoulder and then figure out who did it by smell alone. My sensitivity is not as
dog-like as his, but my nose has still brought me many experiences.
Not surprisingly, most of the times focus on people.
Even in the United States, land of the body-phobic and hyperclean,
it is still possible to smell people. The aroma of a person has many different factors: what personal care products they use,
when they last bathed, what foods they have eaten/like to eat,
their emotional state, and health to name a few in addition to their
own uniqueness.
Because of smell's powerful effect on memories, I have a lot of olfactory memories, some of which I share with you
now.
She leaned over me as she served my hamburger. I caught the subtle airs of desire as she placed my hamburger
before me. None of my dining partners had noticed.
I knew what he had been doing earlier when the door was
closed, but said nothing. What would it profit me to have done so?
I was chatting with a brother when she came in, the girlfriend of another brother. She seemed to have
issues when it came to relationships with other people, substituting casual sex for emotion.
My room
was large, twenty feet by fourteen feet at least. As she lay on my bed, halfway across the room, making small talk,
I caught her odor. Never before was arousal so disgusting.
He was tall, intelligent, and I wish that I kept breath mints on my person when he was around.
I came upstairs from the house meeting and found her waiting in my room, her presence tempting me without her knowledge.
She had been doing homework there. The air was infused with a scent I will never forget. We chatted, and she worked,
and eventually left to go elsewhere. I inhaled deeply, caressing the scent, before I lit a stick of lavender incense to
banish my demons.
His smell seemed to have become more like dust. Sometimes people are said to have come from dust, and I knew I would not see him again.