the inside of my camcorder smells like hobby lobby and other random smell stories

(this is not the post mentioned in my last entry- the one that is supposed to change your life? Just so we're clear on that. I can't handle that kind of pressure with a post about smells)

I have a thing for smells. The good, bad and the ugly. It is said that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory and I am sniffing proof. I can take a scent and relate it to damn near anything, any event, or anybody. For instance, the title of this post is true. Today, I opened up our camcorder to put a tape away and noticed that the inside of it smelled like the inside of the Hobby Lobby store I frequent. It was the strangest thing but it was exactly the same smell. Who knew?

So I've compiled a list of other scents that spark a memory or perhaps a comparison to the inside of some other retail establishment.

Gardenia- Ahhh- this is a sweet one. I had a gardenia bush outside my bedroom window of my childhood home. Everytime I smell this delightful flower, memory lane opens for business.
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Cigars- My Pa. Who, as the older I get, the more I start to look like. He was a handsome dude in his early years, but not sure I'm rockin the "Nimmons Nose" as well as he did. He loved his cigars and I loved him. He could have been smoking a pig's ass for all I cared- he was my Pa and my adoration for him was beyond.

Bath and Body Works Plumeria Scent- anyone remember this one? They don't carry it anymore and according to my ex-boyfriend, this is a good thing. A few days after a certain guy admitted he wore women's panties broke up with me, I went to his house for the post break-up "gathering of my crap" ceremony. No names mentioned here (Eh Hem... MM). As I was getting ready, I somehow convinced myself that if I smelled really good he was going to regret his decision and beg me to come back to him. So I doused myself in Plumeria lotion and body spray. I took one step in the door and you would have thought that I brushed my teeth with shitpaste. "What are you wearing?" he asked. "that smells terrible." At the moment, I was crushed beyond words. Now, I wish I would have smeared the lotion into the leather seats of his car and maybe a little bit into his eyeballs or an open wound perhaps...

Cool Water- My Dad. I bought him this cologne every Christmas for the last 3 or 4 years of his life. Sometimes I want to buy a bottle- just to have sitting there- for when I need to feel like he's still around.

My Children's Hair and Breath- I often smell my children's hair- like really often. And when Tyson was a baby and now with Riley, smelling their breath is like inhaling their soul. It's pure magic.

Moth Balls- For reasons I have yet to uncover, my Granny had a thing for moth balls and her trailer was saturated with their pungent smell. It was just common back then and you eventually became immune to it. But if I ever get a whiff of that smell now- I can remember details from my wonderful childhood with her that I haven't thought of in years...

Copenhagen- Every boy I ever dated from Pendleton, Wahalla, or Iva. What's so ironic now is that I live a block away from a Copenhagen somkeless tobacco plant and on certain days, the wind shifts just right and I feel 16 again and...a little lightheaded, I must say.

On cue, I can remember what my mom's sheets in her linen closet smell like, my grandmother's apartment, Tiger Town Tavern, the smell of Kyle's breath the first time we kissed, a softball field, my saxophone mouthpeice when it needed to be cleaned, my brother's football gear in the laundry room of our house on Quail Ridge Road and fudge. My Granny's fudge as it boiled up in the kitchen. What smells take you back? What scents trigger a memory so strong that you are moved to emotions you've not experienced in a while? Perhaps there is a little more substance behind the old saying, "Stop and smell the roses". I guess you never know when those roses, no matter what form they may come, will be a nice little memory just waiting to bloom.