So yesterday I went to get my hair cut. It’s not something I do often. I make promises to myself when I look in the mirror that I am going to go more regularly, and then I don’t. I settle for the ” lived-in” look I guess I get busy with other adventures in life.
After my styling extravaganza, my youngest three and I went shopping at Whole Foods. We were waiting for Lilly to finish a store meeting ( she works there) and I needed to pick up some yummies for a tea party we were hosting and a lunch later in the week.
As we unloaded our groceries, I enforced an edict that we were going to rest for a full hour while we ate lunch and then we would prepare for our company. I settled down to my lunch of guacamole, blue corn chips and quinoa sushi ( my mind was divided on the international flavor my taste buds would enjoy) and began to peruse Facebook and emails. And then I smelled the smell.
” Hey kids, I smell something, do you?”
One of my cherubs answered, ” It’s quiet time Mommy, are we supposed to answer you? No talking, remember?”
” Yes, I remember. Do you smell anything?”
I began to describe the illusive scent. “Maybe very strong water. I can’t place the smell. Someone get down on their hands and knees and see if it is coming out of the heating grate. “That’s it, good job, take a deep breath.” No I was not trying to accidentally cause my offspring to become asphyxiated. No luck with the smell.
Then I blamed the dog. I wrangled her between my legs, trying to smell her breath and fur. She ran from me with a crazed look in her eyes, or was the crazed look in mine? Anyway, I recruited Lilly to snag her and subject her to the smell test.” Smell her good, it might be pee. She could have gotten into the toilet again, and if someone didn’t flush…”
“She smells fine. It’s not her. There ,there sweet girl, it’s okay, Lexie,” Lilly reassured her.
I placed my nose further in the air, and begin to sniff feverishly. “This is making me crazy! I smell an odd odor. Almost like a hyper-chlorinated water, but that doesn’t make sense. Wait, it actually smells like sugar cookies. Hey, do we have any left from decorating the tree? I could go for one now.”
And then it hit me. The smell was coming from me. It’s my hair . I began to sniff and snort with such a passion, I think Lilly worried I would hyperventilate. “It’s my hair. It must be the mousse.”
I was ecstatic the mystery was solved. Lilly was humorously puzzled, ” Let me get this straight. You went from thinking it was a gas leak, to pee on the dog’s snout, to over- chlorinated water seeping from somewhere to sugar cookies and it’s mousse in your hair?”
“Yes, ” I replied sheepishly.
And then I found myself unsettled by that thought. “Would you sniff my hair for me?”
Lilly obliged and I am happy to report my hair merely smelled like shampoo. Moments later as we unpacked a borrowed tea set a friend lent us, we realized the odiferous scent was the lingering odor of fabric softener trapped in the bag.
I know certain faculties are the first thing to go as you age, but my olfactory system is working just fine. Now my brain, that may be a whole different story.
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