Monday, October 6, 2008

Scents and Sensibility

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Mona's word of last week, smell, has lingered in my brain like the scent of burnt microwave popcorn.

So, an olfactory anecdote: while I was working at the worst job I ever had (a "crepe assembler" at the Magic Pan in Minneapolis), my mean-spirited boss fell down half a flight of stairs at a party. He went to the ER, and when he came back to work a couple days later informed us he was fine, but - and I am not making this up - he had lost his sense of smell in the fall.

My theory at the time was that since smell is located in the limbic system, an ancient part of the brain (in evolutionary terms) commonly called the lizard brain because lizards have this structure in their brains as well, he would lose the more reptilian aspects of his personality, and emerge from the fall as a nicer, more pleasant individual.

I was wrong. He was still a dick.

Just a dick with no sense of smell.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.



Also: Willie Ziebell sez that there is a word for the smell of rain in the air: petrichor. Pronounced pe-trĂȘ-kor. Cool word. Thanks, Willie.



A non-smell related item: you may recall I predicted the Cubs were gonna go all the way this year. I was wrong. Very wrong. They didn't win a single game, and were effortlessly swept out of the playoffs by the Dodgers. More strangeness: on TV I witnessed Cubs fans booing their own team! At Wrigley Field! I don't think I've ever heard that before. Mets fans, sure. Yankees fans, absolutely. But not Cubs fans. They're supposed to be above that sort of behavior.

No Mets. No Cubs. No Rockies. No Twins. Gonna be a boring post-season, I predict.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that not the coolest word EVER?

Wizardry said...

Oh my god, that was hilarious. I loved your theory on how he should be nicer, that was pure genius. Really, it was. I'm still laughing to myself.

And I hate the smell of popcorn; all popcorn. I've hated the taste and the texture- its like eating styrofoam that's had bits of plastic and butter mixed into it before the cooling process. But its that god-awful stench permeating the house when my brother cooks (burns) the stuff in the microwave. And he's never content to burn just one, oh no. He'll burn two of them and combine the good half of each into a single bowl, thus making the equivalent of one well popped bag. Its horrible. I really don't' like popcorn.

God I love reading your stuff. It brightens up my day, and my website comes in black and red, I write sappy emotional poetry, and my name is Victoria Gothic, and your writing still makes me smile; now that's an accomplishment.

Mona Buonanotte said...

Poor Cubbies. But booing them? Nah....

I love the smell of popcorn, burnt or not. Petrichor...the thought of it is making me delightfully woozy....

Clowncar said...

It really is a wonderful word, Irr. The guy who left the comment telling me the word has never commented before. Or since. He's like the vocabulary fairy.

Oh, my, Vic. How can you dislike the smell of popcorn? Burnt microwave popcorn is truly offensive. But all popcorn? That's kind of a baby/bathwater reaction, isn't it?

You seem to be delightfully woozy the majority of your waking hours, Mona. Must be fun to live inside your brain....

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

I should know better than to drink anything over my keyboard or in front of my monitor while I am reading your posts.

Pardon me.

Do you have a towel?

Scarlett & Viaggiatore