Smell has got to be one of the craziest senses.

I recently quit smoking and my sense of smell has come back. When I was a smoker, I had absolutely no sense of smell at all. Now I detect things both amazing and disgusting. Today I walked on the elevator and right into a thick wall of fart. It must have been lingering there for a while too because no one was in the elevator. Before I realized what was going on, the doors had closed and I was travelling to the fifth floor. The doors released me and I quickly made my way out. As I walked around the corner I passed a woman who was heading back into the box of rank. All I could think was ‘Oh great, she’s going to think I was the one that shit my pants in there’. Now the next time she passes me in the halls, I’m sure she’ll remember me as ‘princess poopy pants’. This is not good for my introverted and shy psyche.

A few hours after this incident, I walked into the washroom – don’t worry, this ones ends better, and was struck by a familiar odour. It took me a few seconds to place it. Perfume, cologne, cleaner? Then I remembered, it was my grandma’s hairspray. As a little girl I would sit on the toilet and watch her do her hair. Every night should would put in pin curlers. This was her name for a laborious  process that involved taking small strands of hair, wetting them and then carefully wrapping them into a tight curl, fastened  down with a bobby pin. The next morning, she would take off the silk scarf that protected this ritual and gently undo each curl. After a light fluffing, she would get out a giant can of hairspray and circle her head many times with a mist of spray to hold it all in place.

She once convinced me to sit and endure the pin curler ritual – it was awful. The pain of having my hair pulled, twisted and then my scalp gouged with a bobby pin was terrible. I didn’t sleep at all that night because every time I rolled over, at least 25 pins would all drive deeper into my head. Grandma did my hair up in the morning as she always did her own, and the smile on her face was so amazing. She was so pleased, I was mortified. My 9-year-old face was sporting the hairstyle of a 60-year-old woman. But it made Gram happy and I would have done anything to see her smile. Luckily she seemed to notice my displeasure and never asked me to participate again. That and the fact that I scratched my head for most of the day.

Simple smells – they can evoke so much in your mind.