I Don't Smell Very Good

I enjoy saying that I don't smell good.

What I should say is that I don't smell well. Of course, there are definitely times when I get all hot and sweaty and really stink, but in general it's my sense of smell that stinks.

As far as I can remember, it's always been this way. I remember one Monday morning when I was in high school people were practically vomiting from the stench of something in the home-ec room that had been left out of the refrigerator all weekend. To me it was just a faint odor.

One Christmas -- I was in my mid-thirties by then -- my sister-in-law was saying how nice it was to have a real tree in the house, and I asked her why. She said it was because of the needles, and I said, "Yeah, you have to vacuum them up." She said, "No, for the smell." To which I replied in genuine wonder, "Do pine needles smell?"

Epiphany! That's why my college roommate had brought a small pine bough into our room and propped it in a corner. When asked what she planned to do with it, she had said "Nothing. It's just nice to have." Definitely strange, I had thought, but harmless. And now suddenly after all these years I figured out she had brought it in to perfume our room.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law (looking like she would weep at the sadness of it) said, "You mean you've never smelled a pine tree?"

Nope. Never have. But then, I've never smelled a skunk either.