Smell is a powerful trigger of memory, we all know that. When I was ten, I had a real thing for Lip Smackers lip balm – giant tubes of it in an array of scents/flavours. The smell of anything that approximates Wild Raspberry can transport me to St. Eleanor’s, Prince Edward Island circa 1978. It’s such a powerful feeling that I will unconsciously reach up to adjust my glasses, expecting there to be tape on them. (An explanation is here, at about paragraph 3)
But if there are smells that carry us back in time on the wings of joy, there must be smells whose effect is the opposite. The smells that immediately cause you to break out in a nausea-induced sweat, your stomach churning and your bowels sending off an alarm.
White Shoulders perfume and Colts Wine Tipped cigars.
On their own, either will just create a curling of the upper lip, a crinkling of the nose, perhaps a mild feelings of wishing to depart the space where the smell is. But together, they combine to create my olfactory kryptonite. But I’ll come back to those.
Have I ever mentioned my life long issue with car-sickness? A malady that, in its prime (age 4-12), had me vomiting up an impressive variety of liquids into every manner of container from paper bags (for those times when Mom thought I really couldn’t possibly get sick on such a short trip) to Tupperware (for those times when she figured it was inevitable that any Orange Crush consumed was likely to to rocket forth from my nose like a fire hose so let’s be prepared) in quite a few Canadian provinces, possibly a few American States.
The level of nausea I can suffer on any given trip can be calculated based on position in the car (front or back), the temperature of the car (keep it cool), whether I’ve foolishly tried to read anything from a news paper to a smartphone, and a few other easy-to-control variables. Smell factors in to this but can be a bit mysterious. Some people’s cars possess an odor we could name (but likely not market as) Chunder Trigger. Faster than anything else, smell can bring me to a stance on the side of the road that would humiliate the more thin-skinned.
Which brings us back to the perfume and cigars.
White Shoulders was my mother’s perfume of choice when I was a child. I assume it was her perfume of choice. Mothers often end up wearing/using/enjoying items that children have latched on to as “mommy’s favourite.” Ask my faithful friend S about her decade-long struggle with unicorn figurines.
She had the powder puff, too!. I think we gave it to her.
My father smoked for some years, until the “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE BECAUSE I SAW IT ON THE TV!!” incident of about 3 a.m. sometime in 1977. Until he quit he enjoyed Colts Cigars, wine tipped, I believe. They were about as unrefined and pungent as they sound, possibly more so. (I say “quit” but even into my teens my father would occasionally announce that he was going to take the dog for a walk. The dog he didn’t particularly like, who was small, fluffy and generally disposed to snapping at him. They would return and Duchess would hop up beside me on the couch, smelling like she’d been hanging out with hobos at the tracks. Colts Cigars PERMEATE, Dad. It’s what they do.)
The packaging has been updated, but these are the devils.
When I was young, from time to time, we would venture out as a family. Everyone would be dressed up and we’d climb into our AMC Hornet and head off . On occasions of some note, my mother would pack us into the car, a cloud of White Shoulders swirling about her. My father would start the car and light himself a Colt. Periodically, the scenario allowed for wet weather, which meant the windows of the car would be up, sealing us in, and the temperature within the car would rise a degree or ten for every level my nausea went up.
With my face pressed against a steamy window, I would quietly beg for release as wave after wave of sickness struggled to defeat my sturdy little frame. I could only imagine the resignation in my mother’s eyes were I to huck up tuna melts on my best outfit. In through the nose, out through the mouth…NO. NO. Bad idea. Mouth breathing, that was the ticket. If I could just survive long enough to get to our destination, I won’t have ruined another drive by emptying my innards into the back seat.
And so continued the struggle between good and “Oh God, grab that bag!” that was to continue for the better part of my childhood. And possibly into my adulthood.
Actually, I may be feeling a bit woozy right now. Did someone light a cigar? Can you excuse me? I need to go sit down.
