Common Scents

I just hit the wrong button and everything I had written today vanished. My computer asked "Do you want to save the changes you made" and I must have hit the "no" button. Poof. I guess I never will say no to my computer again. My dog had been barking to go out, really annoyed that I was still sitting here after three hours. She has a small bladder and gets very vocal when I have delayed letting her out to pee and play fetch. I didn’t know what I had done until I came back from playing with Honey. I came up to write about my grandmother's compulsion to hide chocolate bars under her mattress, and to see where it would fit in with what I had already written and poof, all my morning’s blatherings were gone. Out into the ether. I immediately took a walk through downtown with Honey, consoling myself that it happens to everyone, it could’ve been worse, I could’ve lost a week of writing or a year or two year's worth of stories. I’ve done that too, when I crashed my computer a few years ago, and I’m still grieving the loss. On my walk I wanted to tell strangers on the street about my day's loss but I just kept walking, not stopping for anything except letting Honey pee. I’m surprised that I didn’t heave my computer through my window a long time ago but then again, I do love my computer. For a shy girl who never learned to speak up, enjoy parties, or type, I can push words around on this thing for hours of self-entertaining fun. Then I can send my inner ramblings out to friends to see what they think. Pretty neat.

One of the things I was writing about was pillow drool, a very important topic in my sleep life. Ever since I was a kid I sniffed my pillow. I even used to name the best scent Wilbur hoping it wouldn’t disappear. The scents come from drooling on my pillow in my sleep. I would be and still am so disappointed when washday comes and my pillow is cleaned of all its beloved aromas. Since now I am the laundress I can postpone pillowcase washing! When my sister and I were kids, we would lay down and watch TV on my parent's gigantic bed. I would uncover the white pillows from the heavy dark knit bedspread and sniff them. I noticed the scent of my mother's pillow compared to my step-father's pillow and appreciated their differences like two fine wines. As a kid I sniffed everything, and I still do; I have a dog's nose. When my step-father would come off the commuter train in winter we’d greet him, kissing his cold cheek. I inhaled his scent of city men, trains and newspapers. When my dog is eating she puts out a hormone-like scent I can detect, and when she’s sleeping there’s another distinctive aroma. My little brother’s bedroom always smelled of baby powder even though he never used it. It was his sleep scent. Puppies put out a scent that says don’t kill me, to the older dogs. Maybe this was true for my brother! Maybe this is why babies' scalps always smell like roses, so the mothers or siblings won’t kill them when they are crying all night. When my grandparents would visit, every Sunday, I’d come downstairs and follow the scent of their cologne to locate which room they were in. Many times when people walk by me I can smell what laundry soap they use. I have to laugh. When I greet someone I often want to say gee you smell fabulous but that is not a customary greeting in this culture. I doubt it would be appreciated.