I live on the very edge of a small town in an agricultural community, and when the wind is in the right quarter it brings with it, fairly strongly, the smell of cow. And by-product of cow. When I went for my evening walk today, the wind was in just that quarter. This did not bother me.
As my husband and I were strolling along the bicycle path, we encountered one of our more odorous and less popular neighbors: Mr. Skunk (or perhaps Ms. Skunk, I didn’t exactly get close up and personal in order to check). I spotted the skunk, and the skunk spotted me, and I grabbed Boyd’s arm and we backed up and waited for the skunk to go about its business… which, as soon as it had decided that we were not a threat, it did with great dispatch. Still, it’s an evening walk… along an unlit bike path… with trees and foliage on either side making shadows in the moonlight. I was only about four feet away from the skunk when I realized it was there. This did not bother me.
What made my eyes water and my head throb and left me gasping for breath, was the pleasant perfume wafting from my neighbor’s house and filling their yard, and the street, and the next door neighbors yards and about an eight of a mile worth of bike path and woods in all directions. I suspect scented dryer sheets.
The smell chosen for its aestheticly pleasing qualities was the one that made me sick.
Life can be so very ironic.
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