The Marvel of Your Nose

Let’s say you get spritzed by those lab-coated ladies at the cosmetic counter. (Why do they

Let me sell you a scent that’ll open up your sinuses.

wear those coats?  Are they doctors, working on skin genetics?)

Anyway….given smelly choices a year later, you’ll be able to recall, with 65% accuracy, the hooker-scent those lab gals sprayed on you. Smells are processed by the same brain department that files away your emotions and memories.

Look!! Billy inspired this art by Klaus Weber in the Royal Festival Hall
(taken by Ninasaurusrex)

This explains why you can walk into a school and be transported to the day Billy puked at his desk which was right behind yours.  And even after the janitor threw that red-sawdust looking stuff on top, you still dry-gagged the rest of the afternoon.  But Mrs. Lockhest, the teacher wouldn’t let you go to the nurse’s room, instead she scolded you, attempting to make you feel sorry for Billy, and then she sat you in a corner, giving you and your fragile stomach extra percentage/math  problems to do.  But you spent the time figuring out how to get Billy back for spreading his gross mac & cheese regurgitation in an 180° arc. Good grief, couldn’t he have been a tidy vomiter and kept it under his desk? No siree. You’d get Billy—as soon as he got out of the nurse’s room where he was lounging on a cot and skipping math.

Like I said….smells evoke a lot of memories.

Know Your Nose

• Your sense of smell is weakest in the morning, growing stronger as the day wears on.

Preserving us from morning stench-mouth, and ensuring we can’t wait to leave work and the troubling, efficient smell of toner and dead dreams the company has killed that day.

• A recent study showed that people in a citrus-scented room cooperated more and offered to make more charitable donations.

Stick your nose close to the screen. Sniff. Then donate to your favorite charity.
(Photo by Moyan Brenn)

Be on the watch for lemon plants replacing the philodendrons at the office.  Someone is about to ask you to do more work, or LuLu is going to be selling her kid’s band candy again.

• Your sense of smell becomes sharper when you’re hungry.
  

  Of course, being health conscious, I only use Spam-Lite

Well…duh…that’s why my family thinks I’m a great cook.  I don’t feed them their Spamloaf until 9 pm.

• The more estrogen you have, the better sniffer you have…which explains why pregnant women puke like Billy around my Spamloaf.
• If you’re in space, you’ll likely lose your sense of smell.  The lack of gravity allows your sinuses to back up like a clogged disposal.

I already told you how to clear your sinuses…in Jet-Propelled Airspace for Your Face….get a new skull.

Because mood, medication, and air pressure affect our sniffers from hour to hour, it’s believed we never experience a smell the same way twice.

My marvelous nose knows better. Some things never change. That sickly-sweet gag-up goo always smells the same. When I catch the scent of it, I think of Billy, then I think of math.  I’m sure that’s the reason I’m not fast at figuring out the percentage of waiters’ tips.  (At least that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)

What smells take you to a place or event in your past..or you’d like to blame on Billy?