My husband, daughter and I recently visited our oldest granddaughter at the University of Wisconsin during her Freshman year. We were anxious to see how she was getting along, and missed her terribly. When we arrived, we found small welcome gifts in our hotel room from her. Obviously, as proud grandparents, we were delighted by her clever and thoughtful gesture.
My gift was a package of “Turtle” candies and a small book entitled “642 Tiny Things to Write About.” In the note accompanying it, she said, something like “I thought this would give you ideas for your website, it you need them.”
I was leafing through the book and came across this one: “When I smell Pine Sol I think of . . . “ That brought back quite a memory. My husband and I made one of our periodic trips to Costco, and since I was on a cleaning binge, I decided we needed plenty of Pine Sol. “Plenty” may be a bit of an understatement. The jug held enough of the fragrant stuff to swab the deck of the Queen Mary.
We loaded it, along with the other truckload of things we couldn’t do without, in the back of our SUV and headed home. During the trip, I began to sniff something like Christmas trees—a forest of them—in our car. We pulled into the garage, opened the hatch and were flooded with a sea of green goo. The jug had toppled, flooding the car’s back.
First we brought a big bucket and just squeegeed the slime into it. Once we got that done, it was scrubbing time. As the bubbles floated to the roof of the car, we scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more. After all that scrubbing, it took DAYS for the carpet to dry.
The smell of Pine Sol lasted for months in the car and the garage. Whenever passengers commented on it, I’d smile smugly and say, “Oh, I love a clean car!”
And while we’re on the subject of “scent memory,” another one comes to mind—from Christmas. The people who still buy real trees know the same wonderful pine smell, compliments of their tree. Even though we always bought a real Christmas tree when our kids were young, the fragrance I remember was quite different.
My husband grew up decorating the tree with fake snow, made by mixing water and Ivory Snow in huge quantities, creating a blizzard in a bowl. Then he’s glob the white stuff on the branches with a spatula. (Often the floor would end up with more snow than the tree, but that’s another story.) So, for the duration of the Christmas season, our house smelled of diapers, but at least we’re talking about clean ones. Even the mailman noticed when I opened the door to receive a package.
“Are there babies in this house?” he asked. “No,” I said, “I wash diapers to earn extra money.” Between sneezes, the poor man looked like he was ready to take up a collection for me. When Psychology books say that scent bears powerful memories, I believe them.
Comments