Something Smells

I like to smell my food before I eat it; I think it tastes better that way. Have you ever done that? I have smells that bring back old memories for me. Like when I smell cotton candy, it reminds me of being at the county fair as a kid, or when I smell tomatoes cooking down to be canned at harvest time it reminds me of home when I was young. And when I smell English leather I think of my Dad. When I was growing up he always wore it, so it sparks that memory for me. Does your dad have a smell?

Sometimes I smell things to tell whether they’re good or not, like a container out of the fridge, or maybe some day-old laundry, or sometimes a dish rag. Just to see if it’s good. My wife laughs at me when I do that, but that’s how I tell. You can tell lots of things just by smell. Have you ever known you stepped in dog’s shit just by the smell? I bet you have, or can you tell if someone had been smoking just by the smell? Well my wife can. Or have you ever been able to tell that it’s going to rain just by the smell in the air?

The truth is that we use smell all the time to tell us things like if something is burning on the stove, or if the baby needs to be changed. I believe that without the sense of smell a big part of our lives would be missing, so I just wanted to call attention to a mostly overlooked sense, and remind you the next time you get a chance to stop. Take a second, and smell the roses.

Smell ya later dude.