How Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Smells, and Exclamation Perfume all go together. Also another Donkey Picture.

The sense of smell really is quite extraordinary.  Although I would much rather lose my sense of smell before losing my sight or hearing, to be able to smell is much more than actually smelling things.  Did you know you only really taste salt and the other tastes you think you are tasting are actually the smells?  (I'm pretty sure this is accurate but don't quote me.)  Smells can also transform a simple task into a long lost memory.  For example, maybe every time you bake chocolate chip cookies and smell them in the oven you are transported back in time to your grandmother's kitchen.  Or maybe every time you smell coconut your transported back to a beach with tanning oil.  Who knows?!?  Often these types of memories sneak up on us.

Well yesterday as I was busily working checking facebook for the 77th time a smell snuck into my office that transported me back to my elementary school days.  The maintenance guy was using Goo-Gone to get some sticky stuff off a cabinet.  Now you may be wondering what Goo-Gone could possibly remind me of from elementary school, but alas that is the craziness of how our sense of smell triggers these memories.

When I was little I was in love with the book / movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (the original not the creepy one with Johnny Depp).  I pretty much wanted to be Violet (the girl who turns into the blueberry) just so I could go to a place where I could lick the wallpaper and eat the marshmallow flowers.  As you'll remember she always was chewing gum...

So to really follow in Violet's footsteps I decided I would chew gum and often thought it would be cool to stick it behind my ear.  Then of course I would forget about it and shower with it back there and sleep with it back there and wake up and guess what?!?  It would be stuck all over my hair.  The first few times this happened my mom got out the Goo-Gone and was gentle and almost felt bad for me.  After it continued to happen my Dad just cut the gum out of my hair and my Mom would yell, "GET THE GOO-GONE!"  and would more or less rip the gum out of my hair.  Then to punish me she would make me go to school smelling like Goo-Gone because of course I still had to make it to the bus stop and there was no time to take a shower.  I would usually try and mask the smell with some perfume like "Exclamation" which I'm pretty sure you can still buy at Wal-Greens.  Let's just say the two smells together did nothing for my popularity at school which was pretty much already nonexistent.

Now I do take some responsibility for this, but seriously why did they keep giving me gum?  I literally got gum stuck in my hair at least once a month for years (this may be a slight exaggeration but not by much).

So yesterday, when the awful Goo-Gone smell crept its way into my office I was transported back to those hectic mornings getting gum ripped from my hair trying to make it to the bus without anyone noticing that it was me that smelled.


XO XO,
Smelly Molly