Out Of My Element

I like to try new things.
   Not like shooting heroin or anything stupid like that. Dangerous is okay, I bungee jumped for one of my birthdays. From time to time I buy a magazine that I would never otherwise purchase, like Lowrider or O or Paranoia or High Times just because I need to step outside my own narrow experience and discover what it's like to see the world as someone else.
   This is the reason I went to the Bingo parlor on Okinawa when I was there, to expand my horizons. Well, that and because I was bored to tears and really had absolutely nothing better to do. I discovered an entire subculture I knew nothing about. It was a grand sociological experiment.
   Much like my trip to the grocery store today. I decided I needed to buy air fresheners because the house I'm renting is very new and the seals are very tight and I can tell the place is starting to smell like me, and not in a provocative, sexy way like things around me usually do.
   So I found the air freshener aisle easily, but then I came to a bewildered stop. What I had imagined would be a quick in-grab-out operation, much like a convenience store beer run, turned into a ten-minute exercise in soul searching and marketing guesswork.
   I know what apples and cinnamon smell like, but what's Crisp Waters? Dream Garden? Meadows and Rain?
   I mean, seriously, what the f*ck is this? Dream Garden? Every garden I've ever worked in smelled like decaying vegetation and manure. Do I want my kitchen to smell like that?
   Ocean Blue? Relaxing Moments? What the hell are these supposed to smell like? The ocean is a fish's toilet and the most relaxed I've ever been was underneath a stripper in Vegas.* So what's my living room supposed to get from the relaxing 'aromas,' the heady boquet of baby powder, cheap wine, and shame?
   Couldn't the manufacturers have taken pity on me and named the scents something I would know? Like cookies? Or beer? Or sausage. I could totally get behind a sausage aroma.
   Of course, if Relaxing Moments really did smell like a stripper I could probably do with that one too.


* sorry, Mom