Love, Jimmie

When I was a kid, I had a slight obsession with Band-Aids, the name brand kind.  I loved them just so, so much.  To really date myself, I’ll tell you that there was no such thing as a Hello Kitty bandage or a Princess pack with assorted colors and sizes. We had plain Band-Aids, or if we really wanted to get fancy, we could sometimes splurge and get the clear ones so that they were less noticeable.  Personally, I always thought that was a dumb idea, because every little kid knows that half the point of the Band-Aid is to show it off so that someone will ask what happened and you get to tell your whole saga about how you fell off your bike and destroyed your knees. 

I won’t lie and tell you that I was different that other kids, that I was really very noble about my Band-Aid wearing, that I only wore them when really necessary and shied away from telling my tale of woe about my skinned knees.  I will tell you, however, that my fascination with the Band-Aid had less to do with the attention I got from wearing it and far more to do with how it smelled.  I have always urgently loved the way a Band-Aid smells.  Isn’t that strange?  Once Madre bought a new box of bandages and put them away in the linen closet.  Just scant minutes after she closed the closet door, the horrible realization dawned on her that she had NOT PUT THEM ON THE HIGH SHELF!  Oh noes!  She bolted down the hallway in a panic, and just as she suspected, found me on the floor of the closet methodically opening and sticking every single Band-Aid to myself.  I had sniffed them out, see, and very much wanted to smell like my favorite product.  Loved them.

Other smells often cause the same intense reaction in me now.  I have a favorite shampoo that I spend an exorbitant amount of money on regularly.  It does fabulous things to my hair, making it all big and poufy, but honestly it would not matter to me if it made my hair look like rats had been sucking on it.  It makes my hair smell gorgeous and for that reason alone, I will subsist on ramen noodles for a week or two in order to be able to afford it. Other scents I love include: cocoa butter, popcorn, sausage biscuits (but never want to eat them), Felix, clean cats, New Balance running shoes, Jonquil’s pressed powder, bread at Subway, Clorox when it’s in the running washing machine, lemon stuff, suntan lotion, honeysuckle, horses, Armani’s Aqua di Gio and Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion from Bath and Body Works.

On the other end of the spectrum, Yankee Candle stores make me want to barf, literally.  The smells in that store cause me such violent headaches that even moving my eyes will send my stomach into roils of nausea.  And just let some guy walk by me who has bathed in his old man cologne.  Gak, I’m done for the day when that happens.  I cannot stand it.  Other scents I hate include: Febreeze in any flavor, old lady perfume, coffee brewing (smells like burnt tuna), Clorox when it isn’t in a running washing machine (smells like wet dog), tanning beds, coconut stuff, stargazer lillies (oof, another raging headache), and every flavor of lotion (aside from the Warm Vanilla Sugar) at Bath and Body Works. 

Are you wondering what the point of the story is?  Here goes.  I have a temporary job for a week or two.  I’m very thankful for it as it pays better than unemployment and gets me out of the house and into a routine every day.  The people there are very nice and the work, while slightly boring, is stuff at which I excel.  I like it.  But the part that I really love about it, the part where I scored big is that it’s in a hospital.  And hospitals have a particular soap they favor.  And that soap, I’ll have you know, is hands down one of my favorite smells of all time, right up there with the Band-Aids and my ridiculously priced shampoo.   I am such a lucky, lucky girl.  BEST. JOB. EVER.  (nearly)