I found myself in Walmart this morning in the cleaning aisle with my nose pressed to all the different fabric softener sheet selections.  I’m sure I elicited a few strange and curious stares.  But I didn’t care.  I was out of sheets and my laundry was suffering from some serious static cling.

Why not just grab a box of Bounce and be on my way?  Well, you see, I have a super sensitive nose. The smell goes in and makes a bee-line  to the memory part of my brain and pounds on the door.  And the smell of Bounce makes my stomach churn and nausea washes all over me.

Have you ever been going about your day, minding your own business when, WHAM!  you’re hit with a smell that triggers a memory and you’re transported back in time to a certain experience and you have to take a moment just to remember?  Details come back to you and you can just picture the setting, hear the sounds, see the people, and remember how you felt.  That happens to me all the time.

Perhaps I have control issues but I have to smell products before I buy them.  Like shampoo.  Once, I switched shampoos without an initial sniff test only to be transported back to my junior high swim team locker room.  I could smell the chlorine, feel my aching muscles, see my portly mustached coach and prepubescent teammates, and hear the whistles and hollers from the parents in the stands.  Please, give me back my Nexxus.

Some other smells that elicit a serious case of memories are:

Bounce and garlic – Not necessarily together. Can you imagine?  Shoot me on the spot if that happens!  Let me explain.  Pregnancy.  Nausea.  Morning Sickness.  I equate Bounce and garlic breath with early pregnancy.  To this day, both smells trigger the gag reflex.  If we’ve been out of town and have done laundry where Bounce has been used, I have a really hard time loving on the kids. I have to go home and rewash everything to get rid of the horrid stench of Bounce!  And garlic?  Well let’s just say, if one person eats it, we all have to indulge.

Coffee - Reminds me of my very first “real job at East Side Manor in Fayetteville, New York, an assisted living home where I helped in the kitchen.  I can see those cute old people sitting around in the lobby waiting for some excitement.  I can see the head cook’s massive calves sticking out of her nylon socks and white medical shoes.  I can hear “They Built This City on Rock and Roll” playing Every.Single. Night as we were clearing and resetting the tables, washing the dishes, and refilling the creamers.  The memory of ginger snaps and ginger ale comes into play here as well.  Nightcap anyone?

Lysol Disinfectant Spray original scent - When we finally brought Jack home at 4 weeks-old, after his first open heart surgery, we were ultra paranoid about germs, understandably.  A trip to Costco resulted in an entire case of this spray.  We spent the day before he came home spraying every inch of our house.  Gone were smells of potpourri, last night’s meal, bubble bath, baby powder, laundry detergent.  All you could smell when stepping foot in our house was Lysol.  We used every last drop of that spray for the first couple months we had Jack and a couple months after his second surgery.  To this day, the smell of that stuff reminds me of fear, newfound love, late night medicating, little Maddy in pigtails, playing hour after hour of Memory with her while we were stuck in the house, trips to and from Oakland Children’s Hospital, beeping from the O2 monitor, feeding pump, and apnea monitor.  Jack’s heart issues have been relegated to the back burner, thankfully, as has the Lysol.  I now buy anything BUT Lysol.

The Trifecta of green peppers, onions, and ground beef cooking -   takes me back to my childhood.  My sister and I sitting in front of the TV in our cozy tudor in Kalamazoo, Michigan watching The Brady Bunch while my mom makes dinner in the kitchen waiting for my dad to get home from work.  That scene flashes in my memory every time I cook those things together now.  I equate that smell with home and comfort.

Moth balls and wet dog – Reminds me of my childhood friend Katie Burns’ house.  We spent hours playing school and house there.  Her basement always smelled of moth balls.  She had a black scottish terrier with skin issues.  He had scratched patches of fur off his hide leaving bald patches of skin.  He must have required lots of baths because I remember often smelling wet dog  when I was over.  These days wet dog can be smelled  here as well since Molly makes the unfortunate choice of frequenting the cow pasture at least once a week. Oh how I love dogs…

As I was laying in bed the other night I was making a mental list of smells that trigger distinct and strong memories.  I could go on and on in detail but I’ll leave that for nonpublic writing venues.  But here’s a brief list:

• Seaweed
• Old Spice
• cigarette smoke masked with Airwick
• Mustela baby products
• hospitals
• spray adhesive
• Big Red gum
• Anais Anais  and Lauren perfume

OK.  Your turn.  What smells elicit a serious memory jog for you?