My Gift of Smell (Chapter 3)

Saturday morning came and BJ and I were on our way to his 9 am flag football game and he innocently asked, “Daddy, what’s that smell.” Oh my God.  BJ has apparently inherited my gift but more importantly, the smell has gotten into my clothes.  I started sniffing my shirt and underarms and could make out the smell, but still couldn’t identify it.  We went to the game and when we got back in the car, there it was standing there waiting for us like a officer worker waiting for the bus.  It was pretty stagnant in the car and we had to open all the windows to air it out.  I then made plans to have the car washed and knew that this was going to have to be a job that required my special attention.

We got back home and I took off my clothes and put on some house attire and did some daily chores. I noticed the smell now coming out from in the bedroom and had to stop what I was doing and get a handle on it.  MB took the kids out for a few hours to run some errands and I knew that this was the best opportunity for me to get in the closet and give the rug a good scrubbing. I gathered up some boxes and starting cleaning out the closet floor.  Moved everything out and got the industrial strength rug cleaner we buy from Sam’s.  I sprayed the rug down and gave it a good scrubbing with a broom brush.  Once it dried, I did another coating just to make sure.  The entire house started to smell like the rug cleaner and again, I went to bed confident this has been fixed. 

MB came home and noted that the bedroom smelled great and thanked me for a job well-done. The next morning I got up, had my coffee and started to move things back into the closet.  I opened one of the boxes and the smell burst out of the box like a convict trying to break out of prison.  I dug through the box and found the culprit.

Yes, it was my old weekend sneakers that I have had for at least five years.  I couldn’t believe that a pair of shoes could smell so bad that they permeate an entire closet. I quickly put them in the garage hoping that some foot spray and a good airing out could save them.  See I usually keep two pairs of sneakers in my wardrobe.  One pair I wear to the gym or workout in, and the other I keep as a weekend run to the store or errands pair.  Since I was not ready to demote my current gym pair to weekend time, I was very reluctant to get rid of the smelly pair for good.  After a day I did a smell check and noticed that there was no apparent odor, but finally came to terms that it was time to retire them to the trashcan.  I don’t know why we sometimes have such an attachment to a good pair of sneakers, but some people do. 

Oh, MB takes every chance to poke at me and my smelly shoes……

It got me thinking about things we get attached to. I got a favorite house shirt, I got a favorite pair of slippers, and so on……I guess I’m just a creature of habit, but I love it and not concerned about changing anything.