What's that smell?

I’m sure over your lifetime you’ve noticed certain smells and tastes that just bring you back to certain memories. For me, Fall is the season that I remember most from my childhood. There were many things that occurred during the Fall season that impacted my life – most of which was the return to hell, uh, I mean, school.

The other day I walked into an office area here at work and it smelled just like my high school hallway. It was a unique combination of: industrial strength bleach, baking cake and feet. Yup, took me right back to 7th grade when Patsy Vandergren used to volunteer to clean the lunch tables with bleach then come to English class smelling like a janitor. Yuk! To this day I can’t stand the smell of bleach.

Oh, did you think this was going to be about how warm and fuzzy some of those smells make me feel?

Yeah, not so much.

Let’s see, what else curdles my milk…
…the taste of fishy fish. I like fish, I just don’t like the taste of fishy fish. If you’re like me you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say “fishy fish”.
…the smell of Ivory or Palmolive dish soap. Makes my skin crawl! I once took one big swig of milk from a glass that wasn’t quite completely rid of the soap from being washed.
…the smell of unwashed hair makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Mostly, it’s just gross smelling and doesn’t really remind me of anything other than someone who hasn’t washed their hair in a couple of days. This is a very prevalent smell at the market early on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
…the taste of baby corn reminds me of a basement.

For those of you who would like to hear the warm and fuzzy side of the Art Barista, here is that…
…the smell of baking bread reminds me of my mom and coming home from school to her homemade goodies from the oven. (you’ve seen my thighs, right?)
…the taste of a homegrown tomato. This takes me right back to my parent’s garden when I was very young and snacking on the sun-warmed tomatoes straight from the garden cart. Mom would harvest these and can them for the coming year. It wasn’t unheard of for her to put up 80 jars of whole tomatoes and 80 jars of juice in a summer. She also canned pickles… this is better off not written about.
…the smell of puppy breath – while it’s not a great smell it reminds me of being a nanny in Edina when I was in high school.
…the taste of mom’s vegetable soup with bread, butter and American cheese.
…the smell of a freshly opened regular Pepsi.
…the smell of my dad’s hugs after grilling. They smell like grill and fee like love.