Day 16 – Do You Have a Memory That’s Linked To a Smell?

note: this is part of #bloganuary where each day in the month of January, there is a prompt that we can write on.

I have two actually.

My grandmother, my dad’s mom, wore a perfume that you can still get today. It was not an overwhelming, oh my gosh who just dumped a bottle of perfume on themselves, smell. It was a pleasant smell. Her perfume was Chantilly.

It is odd how smells work. I do not know if I remember that as being “grandma’s smell”. It was not until she passed away that I began to relate that smell to her and the memory banks associated to her. I can remember, soon after she passed, that I was in an elevator and immediately recognized the smell. If I recall, for just a second I wanted to look for her. One of the ornaments that I was given as a child is stored in the original Chantilly box that they used as packaging to send it to me, both pictured above. Not only do I have the ornament, seeing the box also takes me back in time and reminds me of that smell. The year on the box is the year it was given to me.

Now, this is not my memory per se, and don’t let her fool you, it was not near as bad as my amazing wife will tell you. When she tells the story face to face, you get all the bonus facial expressions to help emphasize and elevate the hysteria that I apparently caused. It was not that bad……..

So here is the story:

Dawn and I are popcorn-aholics. We pop our own, stove top style, at least twice a week. In fact, after our workout on Thursdays, it is dirty martini, popcorn night. Our reward for a good workout. Anyway, one evening, I was heating the oil and the trick is to heat the oil to an optimal temperature just before adding the popcorn kernels. I was experimenting with that timing and I may have let it go a bit too long. Soon it started to smoke. Dawn calmly pointed it out to which I replied:

“Babe, I got this, I am a professional”

As the smoke continued, she was a bit more panicked in her query. And I told her:

“Seriously dude, I got this!”

Well the next thing I know, she is screaming, and there is dark smoke billowing out of the pan. She is hollering the entire time as we work to move through the house to get it outside. In fact, I may have joked as it passed the sink that I should just run it under water. She did not appreciate the timing of my joke. Go figure.

As I tell this true story, please note that I am very aware of the dangers of oil fires.

Anyway, she says the smell was awful and anytime there is a bit of smoke coming from the pan, her radar goes up, as does the pitch of her voice, making sure to strongly suggest that I not catch the pan on fire, causing her to suffer with the smell of burning oil ever again.

Come to think of it, she is more concerned about the smell of the house than she is about my well being. Hmmm. I wonder if Chantilly will cover the remnant smell of a very mild oil fire.

Have a good one y’all

t.t.