Crazy shit

It occurred to me the other day, probably during some
commercial or other, that no sense is more intimate and
mysterious than smell. When you smell someone, you are
actually taking a part of them inside yourself invisibly
through the air. NO color, no sound, just smell. And the
way each smell affects you is unique. There is no third-party
confirmation, it's totally subjective.

You actually take a part of someone inside yourself when
you taste them, too, but that's called cannibalism and doesn't
have the same mystique.

Smell evokes memory more completely than any other
sense as well. You could be 40 years old and catch a
whiff of Bubble Yum mixed with Chanel and instantly
think about the moment you entered puberty thanks to
your fifth grade teacher's way of writing on the
chalkboard ... even if you haven't thought about Ms.
Buttonschon in decades. Madre de Dios, but that woman
could erase fast.

In my 13th summer, I used to slather my pits with Old
Spice and read Conan novels every day for three
months. So imagine my surprise when, at 18, my college
roommate decided to forego his shower and OD'd on the
OS. I ran into him in the hall and was suddenly
transported to a realm of high adventure. I didn't
recall my smelly little room or myself lying on my bed
reading. I had this instant, compressed recollection
of months of Cimmerian thrills. My roommate was lucky
I didn't take his damn head off like that guy in "The
Tower of the Elephant." I'm serious, it was a rush of
adrenaline I hadn't felt since I was an adolescent.

When I was a little kid and I'd get sick, I'd lay in
my parents dirty clothes pile. My father worked as a
welder for a living and has always hade a pretty
unique, if not pungent, bouqet. Laying there in what
most people would have defined as a pretty heady
stank, I would feel as comforted as if my mother was
rubbing my tummy. Maybe even more so. Of course, my
mother would usually try to roust me out of the
clothes. She knew what sins were in that pile, but
when you're four and your stomach hurts and you take a
nap in a big stinky pile of cloths and feel better,
you don't care about poo poo undies and sweaty
t-shirts.

I'll tell you something else for naught, to this day
I'm not bothered by my dad's BO. I guess I'm like a
dog that way. Just because the odor is "not good" by
all known social standards, doesn't make it bad. I
can't imagine that Kate Moss's pits reek so bad I
wouldn't want to give them a whiff. A dog's nose is so
sensitive it will take great pleasure from smelling
your nether regions just to see where you've been and
what you've been up to.

To a dog, smell is powerful way to of sensing someone
else. Shit isn't a bad smell, it's just another way of
figuring somemone out. This guy eats a lot of meat,
I'm sticking with him. This guy is sick, be cautious.
Dogs can probably even tell if you' crazy from the way
your crap smells. Why not? We can tell by looking at
someone or listening to them rant. Why not because
their shit is crazy smelling?