Odorific Ramblings

So I’m sitting in the sun room facing the backyard here in quiet Hampden, MA. Coffee steams from a cup resting close at hand. My notebook perched on my lap, I watch as two of the gutters on the rear of the house overflow. It’s quiet time here (see my past blog on what "quiet time" means in my brain design), though the kids are up. Casey is playing in her room, probably drawing and making cards. Jake is wrapped up in Phineas and Ferb or Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney. Mel gets a rare chance to sleep in.

The rain hammering the room's roof soothes me, giving me ample time to think. If only there was more silence in this life so we could stop and think. Never was this more on my mind than on this past week’s trip to Las Vegas. Talk about extremes. The 5 hour plane ride out of Hartford featured the vocal stylings of a screaming baby and the intense body odor of the passenger beside me. My noise-canceling earbuds muffled the howling infant but nothing could defeat the cadaver-like aroma producer buckled in beside me.

I did manage to read about 65 pages in a favorite novel of mine, “The Initiate Brother” by Sean Russell and wrote about 6 pages of short story material plus some additional plot outlining. I tell you that the smell of the man beside me could only be described as insidious. It never let up.

About two months ago I passed a man at a customer service desk at the grocery store. I walked past at a distance of about 8 feet. His body odor assaulted me so violently I stopped walking to confirm the source. He was buying about fifty bucks worth of lottery tickets. You know what the joke to follow is, right? Maybe he should pay his water bill? Maybe he should be buying soap? Yeah, yeah. The point is, the lack of hygiene required to create such a smell can only be described as intentional. You can’t tell me these individuals didn’t notice how rancid they must smell!

In college, a beloved history professor of mine, Dietrich Schlobohm once lectured us about the power of marketing in our modern culture. He explained that many things we are told we must buy are pure crap. Their only intrinsic value is to make money for those who manufacture and distribute this waste of resources.  His primary example was deodorant. Yes, deodorant.

Deodorant, Dr. Schlobohm explained, only masks our true selves. If you buy soap and use it daily, not only are you clean, but you smell like you ought to smell. The scent of deodorant is not natural therefore making it unnecessary. It is not essential thus you can live without it.  I have to give Dr. S credit for his logic because it makes total sense to me.

However, there many times in the too-warm lecture rooms when I needed to speak to the good Dr. after class that I couldn’t help but notice his pungent, natural odor. He never approached offensive or rancid levels of aroma, but I guess the best description is natural. And to most of us, if you can smell the "natural" on somebody that’s just gotta be bad. Or is that just what we’ve been told to believe?

How long has deodorant been around, anyway? What did we do before we knew we smelled "natural"? Where exactly is the line between natural and unnatural? I don’t think I’m skilled enough to describe that line, but I know it when I smell it. When someone’s B.O. keeps you from sleeping, concentrating, stops you as you’re passing by, makes your nose wrinkle, forces you to gag or squeeze a little bile into your mouth – you have arrived at unnatural.

Reclining on a lounge chair beside a satellite pool at Mandalay Bay in Vegas, we rest. The fun and joy of the wave pool behind us, Mel and I relax under the 105° sun. We arrived early and balked at the $50 rental of a beach chair with an accompanying umbrella. Instead we found chairs beside a tree that provided a small degree of shade while being three steps to the pool. An unexpected benefit of this spot appeared in form of an intermittent breeze. Just when my skin approached the brink of sizzle, the refreshing wind cooled my skin. 

Here, under the swaying branches and its dancing leaves I relaxed. I thought about nothing and reveled in it. All the responsibilities and worries faded into the subconscious for a time. An occasional dip in the pool kept me cool. Staring up at the towering hotel, undulating palms, puffs of clouds I became a resident of the oasis. Then a sight-seeing helicopter would pass by to remind me of the space I actually occupied in this world. Ah, the state of temporary.

I rose from the pool and the breeze actually made me shiver. By the time I lay back in the chair the chill left me and a cool equilibrium returned. The cycle repeated again and again.

Inside the resort, at the gaming tables, along the strip, in the restaurants, riding the elevator, in the restrooms, in the helicopter above the strip, at the bar – each mini-environment etched its mark upon my mind. As an observer of people, this was my Valhalla. Perhaps in another entry I’ll share more of my observations, but I’ll close with this. I love my children and missed them soon after I boarded the plane to leave. But I spent the precious few days away from normal life with my best friend, my wife Melanie. I don’t go on many trips or outings with "the boys". I don’t know if I’m missing anything. But I know this: most of the cool stuff I’ve done or things I remember most fondly I’ve shared with Mel. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you, babe. And Happy Birthday.