It Makes no Scents

I will do it, if absolutely necessary. Yes, I will, in fact, take my life in my hands and walk into the most chemically-polluted atmosphere to ever rise up from the maw of Hell. I will go into -- the Yankee Candle store. Now, OK, I "might" have developed a chemical "sensitivity" somewhere along the line, probably from soaking mouse skins in toluene as part of a high school science project -- but I challenge anyone out there to tell me that they actually find it pleasant to walk in the door of a Yankee Candle -- or, for that matter, a Hallmark store, or even to walk down the "candle aisle" of the neighborhood supermarket. We are the most over-scented society, I would say, in history. We are obsessed with making everything smell like anything but what it is. I was reminded of this yesterday when I pulled a new kitchen trash bag out of its box. It was scented. A trash bag. Why? Why on earth? Surely they don't think a measly scented trash bag is going to stand up to the miasma of way-past-pull date milk, or limp, black lettuce, or that forgotten handful of garbanzo beans. No. It's completely arbitrary, the same way having to scent every square inch of toilet paper is arbitrary -- or every baby wipe, fabric softener sheet, tissue, and paper towel. But that's not the worst of it. We also have to have scented candles, "air fresheners" (for home and automobile), and -- possibly worst of all -- those "plug-ins" that put out more toxic chemicals per minute than a lead smelter. These things literally burn my nose and make my eyes water. When I'm in the same room (OK, the same house) with one I feel dizzy, nauseous, and determined to escape by any means possible. But wait, there's more! We now have -- just to balance things out -- "unscented" products. But as anyone whose nose hasn't already been rendered helpless is aware, these "unscented" products have a scent! They smell "unscented".

Now, don't tell me I'm a hysterical hypochondriac, 'cause I'm not. I can enter an Oriental grocery store with total aplomb -- open a jar of kim chi with anticipation -- eat smoked herring for three meals a day -- put nuoc mam on my rice -- and yes, spend the evening at a dance with people who fall along the entire spectrum of personal hygiene -- Frenchmen even! None of this fazes me a bit, because you know what? Those scents are natural -- they're organic -- they occur in nature -- they _belong_. But no, that's not good enough for the squeaky-clean American, with his Puritan heritage. We have to cover, conceal, and suppress all that is natural, and then add back and amplify that which is not, to the point where our senses are overwhelmed, then dulled, then beaten into submission. Can we even _taste_ food, any longer, that is not somehow augmented by a dozen or more chemicals (MSG being, perhaps, the least hazardous)? Would any of us recognize the _natural_ version of scents that we are barraged with, in artificial form, a hundred times a day? Do we have the subtlety of the wine connoisseur, who has to take pains to _protect_ his olfactory apparatus from assaults of this type? Can a mother distinguish the scent of each of her children, and of her mate, out of many? This is an aptitude that "primitive" people have. Have you ever "smelled rain" -- or snow? Why is the artificial world, with its grossly exaggerated sensory stimuli that hit us over the head -- why is that somehow preferable to the world that nearly everyone knew 100 years ago, and many people know even today? Is the craze for the artificial, the sanitized, the sterile, a uniquely American failing? And in any case, what good is it? What function does it serve?

Watch this space -- I'll get back to this and related issues before long.