Aversion

In the ladies restroom at my work there is a “scent sprayer” on the wall that sprays scent (in case you couldn’t tell from the name) into the room every so often. It’s probably set to go off every 5 or 10 minutes but it seems more likely that it’s programmed to go off EVERY TIME I WALK BY IT. For a normal person (like you) this may not be such a big deal, but for an abnormal person (…me) it just plain sucks. Today, it sent my mind whirling down the path of randomness. Let me explain.

I’m allergic to scents. Not sense, or cents, let just get that straight. If you ever want to give me cents, I won’t refuse. And I’m a huge fan of common sense. I’d even be ok with uncommon sense, as long as it makes sense, but I digress…

Scents to me are like falling off the monkey bars in elementary school. (Yes, that happened to me once. It was the first time I recall getting the breath knocked out of me.) First, I get a faint whiff of the smell and I immediately stop breathing. Then I try to analyze what it is I smell and whether or not that smell is going to make me sneeze. Then I try to breathe through my mouth, rather than my nose, to “test the waters.” Granted, this all happens in about 1/100 of a second. Then if I decide it’s safe to breath I stick with short, shallow breaths through my mouth until I can get away from the scent and take a great big breath of air.

Please don’t think I’m weird. But this does get weirder (which means it must already be weird, I know, but still…)

So, here’s the short list of the scents I’m allergic to:
Fragrant candles
Perfume\cologne
Fragrant hair products
Cleaners (never got me out of doing chores, though)
Strong flowers
Fragrant soaps
Potpourri
Smelly lotions

As a girl this aversion seems to go against everything I’m supposed to be. I can never (hardly ever) borrow anyone else’s hairspray or lotion because it has a scent that makes me sneeze and gives me a headache all day. I mean, come on, how is a girl supposed to be a girl if she doesn’t smell good? Don’t guys love that?!

If I decide not to take a shower one day I can’t hide it with a nice perfume (like I know some of my friends do… not because I can smell them but because they tell me… I promise, you don’t stink)! It kinda sucks!

I’ve thrown away (or re-gifted) thousands of smelly candles and lotions throughout my life (sorry if it was you that gave it to me, it’s the thought that counts, right? Sorry!)

But anyways, to get back to the point (and yes, there is one… ok, there’s not really one, but to get back to what I was saying before…)

The “scent sprayer” in the ladies restroom at my work is now spraying a cinnamon pinecone scent. This to me is DEATH OF ALL DEATHS, worst of the worst, being circled by sharks while giving yourself a papercut. Yes, it’s THAT bad. It’s holding your breath everytime you walk into a store during the months of November and December. It’s having to hold your breath every time you walk into Tai Pan Trading, and I love that store, though I kinda have a love/hate relationship with it.

Yes, I have an aversion to cinnamon pinecones.

But as I stood in the bathroom, washing my hands and holding my breath, I was reminded of the vampires in Twilight. (Yes, I’m reading it… again… what of it?) I was thinking of how they have to hold their breath around humans because of the smell and how that was exactly like what I was doing. Except that it’s not really much like what I was doing at all because they were holding their breath because they liked the scent so much and I was holding my breath for exactly the opposite reason. But I wanted to think for a minute that I was like them, part of their coven, able to leap big rivers in single bounds (yes, I’m in the middle of book 4, so exciting, no?). And then I got another whiff of the artificial cinnamon pinecone smell and ducked out the door, all the while laughing at myself for thinking that I might be like a vampire.

I’m weird,… it’s ok,… I know!