[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] I told you so!

Look!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

This little dude has ambitions, and I think they involve commanding a crack team of pigeons to come down and eat our faces.

Needless to say, there's a certain inescapable terror whenever I step out into my yard these days. I mean, even the ants seem a little dodgy now and then. And, it's not that I'm paranoid or anything. Things are just... I don't know.

Strange?

Now, don't get me wrong, I like crazy as much as anyone. It's just that when you step outside and the birds and squirrels are looking at you as though they're sizing you up to roll you for your hard earned money, it's a smidge off-putting or unsettling.

I mean, look at the picture, people. When you see a squirrel looking at you like this, you know that sneaking up behind you is some other critter thumping a black-jack in his little critter paw. And, if you stand around a little too long, he'll thump you on the back of your head, and when you come to, don't be surprised if all your money and credit cards are missing.

Indeed... The world has become a very strange place.

Another case in point:

A while back, I bought some fabric softener and did my monthly weekly batch of laundry. I like fabric softener, and that probably goes a long way in explaining why I am single. After all, if a guy smells like fabric softener, he's either married or gay, and since I am neither, I seem to be some sort of April Fresh enigma in the world of single people.

Anyway, this fabric softener I picked up smells a little weird. At first it was a little hard to place the scent rolling off my pile of clothes, and I wandered around my day with this odd little whiff desperately trying to trigger some sort of memory hidden deep in my subconscious.

For what seemed like the longest time, it puzzled me. I just couldn't get a handle on it. It smelled like something familiar but rare. It was a scent I'd passed by as though walking through a crowd and catching a flicker of a wind of someone's perfume or cologne or shampoo or whatever.

And then it hit me.

It was June of 1993 that I was smelling. But, not just any day in June of '93. Nope. With this fabric softener, the memory it triggered was of my stepping off a plane in early June of 1993, in Brussels, Belgium at six in the freakin' morning.

For those of you who've been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a strange mix of air freshener and carpet cleaner that fills the air. And, since the crowds are small at that unholy hour, the airport smell is not knocked into the background by the confused scent of equally confused men and women travelers on their way to and from one place to another.

So, that's what my clothes smell like now. I am walking around with the funk of an early morning Belgian airport on me.

-DP

--
Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 8/08/2008 11:02:00 AM