I had finished my news shift
Sunday morning and, once home, was chillaxing contentedly on the couch,
watching sports on the television.
At one point, I happened to hear
my wife in the kitchen, marveling at how the smell of freshly-made strawberry
jam had remained in the mason jar she dug out from under the kitchen counter.
Listening, I thought to
myself, I love the smell of fresh strawberry jam!
When my wife returns from a
shopping trip to Bath and Body Works, I usually manage to mooch a bottle of
strawberry-scented hand sanitizer to stash in the car!
Much as I enjoy the smell of
strawberries, I confess I was too lazy to get up and go to the kitchen to smell
the inside of the mason jar.
Whatever.
Moments later, lo and behold,
the mason jar was making its way toward me!
My son, having chimed in his
own endorsement of the allegedly intense strawberry smell, offered to let me
sniff the fruit-scented jar.
 |
| Jar containing intense strawberry scent |
It occurred to me that my
son’s willingness to bring the jar to me was generous, if not slightly unusual.
He helpfully twisted the top
off and held the jar under my nose. I didn’t take a huge sniff, but I didn’t
take a cautious one either. The whiff I took was, admittedly, unguarded.
My brain immediately and
unmistakably labeled the smell “sewer”, so I was puzzled.
In the milliseconds that
flowed past, I was also disappointed I didn’t smell the sweet strawberries I had
expected.
Not my wife, my son, nor his
girlfriend, could explain the drastic olfactory discrepancy, because one of
them had slipped to the floor in hysterics, the other was standing but keeled
over, and my wife was sitting at the table, trying to keep from falling on to
the floor.
They call themselves "family". Hmph.
The devious, nauseating
nature of their scheme had yet to be revealed.
Oh well, they duped me, I
concluded. They told me the jar would smell like strawberries and it smelled
like soaked socks that had sat forgotten for far too long.
I wasn’t sure the gag was
worth the tears streaming from their eyes, but their uncontrolled laughing and
gasping continued.
I went back to watching ski
cross on the television, deciding, with some indignation, their laughter was
strangely intense for a prank that, on the surface, seemed fairly lame.
The laughter continued.
I eventually looked back at
the collection of clowns, when one of them, probably my son, managed to
explain, rather proudly I might add, that he had cut the cheese earlier in the
day and bottled it.
My brain quickly recalled the
odor and, for a moment, I had to suppress mild revulsion. Then, I pragmatically decided it
was already over and done, and it was time to allow my nose to move on.
I gave the group the stinkeye
and, I cannot lie, I longed to make their eyes water in the passing wind!
Alas, it appears my destiny is to carry this twisted experience along with the rest of my baggage.
Unfortunately, what the prank
lacked in sophistication, it more than made up for in outrageous inanity and silliness.
Still, for me, the world has
changed radically.
Now when I hear Jim Croce
sing about “Time in a Bottle”, I think about a far less mystical feat;
flatulence in a bottle. Christina Perri may be singing the words, “Jar of
Hearts”, but, trust me, that’s not what I’m hearing.
