i stink

my wife has a bionic nose.

no kidding. it's as if she had some tragic accident upon reentry and lost her olfactory nerves, and nasa dropped six million bucks to put in super sensitive bionic ones.

for example: i can smoke a pipe. nothing too obnoxious; some black cavendish, perhaps, or maybe some whiskey cured. i can then enter the house, strip off, toss all my clothes in the wash, take a shower, scrub my hair twice, clean every inch of me, floss, brush my teeth, swish listerine, put on deoderant, don fresh clothes, give myself a spritz of kenneth cole black, and when she gets home will announce after kissing me and wrinkling up her nose: "you stinky like pipe!"

this is also the woman who, upon my announcement that i had been considering taking up the pipe cooed: "ooo, i love the smell of pipe smoke!"

not on me apparently.

when you have a bionic nose, and a pipe-smoking, sweaty husband, and two boys who are fascinated by dirt and bugs and grass, and three cats, the house can be a painful place to exist.

luckily in this day and age, there is an entire supermarket aisle dedicated to removing all residual scents of everything you love from the carpet, the walls, the furniture, and the air. and their target group for sales is my wife. well, and maybe a couple of other wives who have lost their sense of smell to some sort of bizarre accident and then had them replaced with mechanical means. we have oust and febreze and candles and whathaveyou. but perhaps the thing most present in our house are the plug-in style air fresheners.

i see them in the commercials. some sort of oil or pad or other such thing that you shoot a small trickle of electricity through and it emits--"old man cologne!" "that's not old man cologne, it's lavender!" "lavender? that's crap. it smells like some sorta really bad aqua velva." and they keep cranking out new and better ones. "lasts longer!" "smells better!" "now with less aqua velva and more lavender scent!" i keep loose screws and nuts and nails in ziploc bags in a box in the garage. my wife keeps outdated plug-in air fresheners.

she was overjoyed to discover the latest and greatest in air freshening technology: little statuettes that have built-in sensors and sneeze out a spray of essential oils to make the atmosphere pleasant only when it is necessary. they are a bit larger than the plug-in versions, but are not limited to a place where a socket is readily available. they have sort of an art deco look, and can be placed on any shelf, table, or on top of the tv.

they blink one baleful yellow eye at me, and i am immediately distrustful of them. there are three throughout my house: one on a shelf in my bedroom (near my side of the bed), one on the end table at the end of the hall (and near the cat litter box), and one on top of the tv (where the kids, cats, and myself end up spending the bulk of our time.)

i begin to notice a disturbing trend: any time i pass one, it spits its spray venemously as i pass. every time. without fail. but never when my wife passes.

"hey, what kinda sensors you say were in these things?" i ask casually one night.

"motion sensors. they sense when someone is near, and if it has been awhile, they spray the smelly stuff."

"motion sensors?"

"yeah, why?"

"you sure it isn't stink sensors?"

"what?"

"well, every time i pass one, it goes off. these things are giving me a complex. like they can smell me and no matter how good i think i smell, they think i stink, and are doing their damndest to counteract it."

my wife, the bionic-nosed woman, just laughs, and calls me "silly."

but i see them eyeballing me. they know. as soon as i get close, they are going to cough out their combination of lavender and aqua velva, or rose and old spice, or whatever it is. they will even try to spit it directly on me.

and i begin to wonder if perhaps this new technology is created by some subsidiary of nasa after years of extensive research based on nanite scent detectors they placed in the noses of wives who lost their olfactory nerves in horrible space shuttle accidents.

or maybe i need to start wearing old man cologne.

if i've said it once...

i have said it before, and i will say it again: i am one lucky motherfucker. i remind myself of that daily. that is not to say that i haven't had rough times in my life. times where i wanted to cash in whatever chips i had left and call it quits. times when i wondered where god was hiding that he could no longer see me and the mire of shit i was wading through. but i have always had the good fortune to come out the other side clean and smelling like roses, and beyond a little experience, unscathed.

i see others around me. some who are in something that for me counts as a real trial. my friend melly, same age as me, battling cancer, for example. family members who have battled cancer in the past. people i never got say proper goodbyes to, perhaps, and with whom i may never get the proper closure, until the day i tearfully remind my own loved ones that, regardless of what was going on at the time, i have always been one lucky motherfucker, and then transfer from this existence to the next, where i will meet them again, and say the things i should've always said, except that you think you have forever to convey those feelings that will hit you at midnight on some random thursday a good ten years after you have missed that opportunity.

and i consider myself doubly lucky that i have this awareness of my own luckiness. now, o my beloved non-existent readers, this is not me tooting my own horn. i didn't always feel this way. there was a time when the world was fucking falling apart if the girl i loved didn't love me back. where something as simple and insignificant as that would have me throwing in the towel. i hate to admit it openly, but yes, i have matured. i have realized just how fucking precious this gift we call life is, and just how much of it i have been blessed with.

and again, it may sound like it now, but i am not tooting my own horn. i am not full of myself. if you, the beloved non-existent reader, have been here more than twice you will know this is not my style. i am just a guy, trying to make it happen, trying to be happy, on this little blue marble in the big fucking universe that looms over us every night.

i am trying to remind us that those people who make us aware of just how lucky we are need to be reminded that we have noticed. that we are there for them. that when they wade through that swamp of shit we will be the ones putting out a hand to pull them free, clean and smelling like roses; so that they too may stand on the edge of some cesspool and drag the next lucky motherfucker free with a warm hand and a smile.

none of us are perfect. none of us are happy all the time. i am learning to forgive. i am learning to forget. but happy is the man who is surrounded by the kinds of people who stand ankle-deep in putrid waters (or better yet, come in to the armpits to walk a bit alongside) to cheer us on to whatever finish line awaits us. and i, for one, must say: happy is the man who knows just how fucking lucky he is; just how blessed; just how gifted and happy and cared for he has been his whole life, and how important it is, as one who is a lucky motherfucker, to pass that luck along. how important it is to be willing to wander the swamps lending hands.

i pray, o my beloveds, for i know you are still out there; still wander my way when you find a quiet moment; that you also will pass this along. that you will reach out to those around you who are in need; that you will thank your lucky stars, or god, or whatever power you submit to and in the same breath reach out to the others around that need that.

we are all in this together, and there is nothing more god-like and divine that realizing it, and sharing it.

darth sardonic