Smells Like Teen Spirit (And Other Things)

I love it when a certain smell will get in my nose that reminds me of some place or some one. It's usually not a specific scent that I can pinpoint like "hey, it smells like hot dogs in here," but, rather, a combination of odors that triggers the sense's memory. For example, the craft service room on the stage of the show I work on smells exactly like my college dorm room--the normal smell that is, not the smell after a night of drinking. So every time I step into this room, it's a unique reminder of all the great times I had in college, sort of like a little time machine...with a well-stocked cereal selection and a kickass coffee maker.

There's a woman at work who wears the same perfume as an ex-girlfriend of mine used to wear, which was weird at first because I think we associate peoples' perfumes as being The Scent of Them. If you knew what the coworker looked like, you would think it was pretty funny because, suffice to say, she looks nothing like the former flame. Now it barely occurs to me anymore.

Another woman walked by me at the gym and I don't know whether it was simply perfume or perfume combined with soap, shampoo, and/or deodorant, but she smelled just like my late grandmother.

One of my favorites is when I get a whiff of that special bouquet of fresh roasted nuts, car exhaust, trash, and cigarette smoke and I think to myself, "Ahhhhhhh. New York."

Another one that's really strange is the smell of Christmas. Surely, there's lots of scents that we associate with The Season, (cinnamon, pumpkin, pine, etc.) but I'm talking about a scent that's not as easily pegged. I have no idea what it's comprised of; I just know it adds up to Christmas.

I was watching my favorite travel show last night as they journeyed to the French Riviera. One of the stops was at a perfume factory where you could design your own custom fragrance. They had these guys there that make the perfumes called Le Nez (Nay), French for "the nose," who can differentiate and identify approximately 6,000 different smells just by taking a quick sniff. I think I shall keep one of these guys on my staff so that whenever I happen upon one of these mystery memory scents, they can bottle it for me.

Actually, strike that. Half the fun is the surprise of the whole thing...kind of like in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" when they were in the wormhole of time and had no idea where/when they would find themselves next.