About scents…
While I was organizing my medicine cabinet, a jar of Vick’s VapoRub fell open…and I was transported.
There are scents that have the power to take you back to another time and place.
In my case, Elmer’s glue throws me back to my elementary school class. I used to love to spread it all over my hands…sometimes in a particular pattern, then I would wait for it to dry and form a hard layer that I could then have fun peeling off. It was tricky and an art to peel it off without breaking it. I must have spent hours doing that. I really think it was giving my hands a kind of paraffin treatment because they were left soft and smooth after that every time. Childhood is truly wonderful!.
The smell of Vetiver Cologne takes me back to school.
That was the all time remedy for pretty much any ailment. You had a headache? No problem. A dab of cologne on your forehead and… Voila! Miraculously…the headache was gone! Yes, the mind really is a wonderous thing.
The toxic stench of burning plastic evokes a very particular memory. My brother liked those car or plane models that came in like one thousand pieces, and I used to love helping him put them together. Apparently, these were “boy” toys…so I didn’t get my own… although I liked them as much as he did.😡
I recall that the wheels and other small parts came attached to plastic holders that served no other purpose except to keep these parts together. In that instance, we had the brilliant idea to burn and melt these plastic pieces… the melting plastic really had a very strong odor. However, the flames would not turn off! Panicking, it occurred to us to throw it out the window.
The problem…it landed on the roof of the garden terrace below…which was covered with dried leaves. Well, we could have potentially burned the house down; but thankfully my brother was skinny enough to squeeze out the window and climb down to stump it out. We were really resourceful kids.
As children do, we were laughing our heads off and all the while being very quiet…lest our parents found out!
In hindsight, I guess we shouldn’t have been playing with matches. I must have been 8 or 9 years old and my brother maybe 10. Crazy memory. My parents really were clueless.🙄
Now…Rubbing alcohol has a bad memory attached to it. It reminds me of injections, vaccines, doctor’s offices, and hospitals. Sadly for me, my father was our doctor. Therefore, any vaccine or other injections were given at home and usually during “playtime”. Yes, we were ambushed when we least expected it. It got to the point where the smell of alcohol was the warning signal that an attack was eminent. It’s no wonder that I’m traumatized and suffer from needle phobia now.🥹
Ahh… but that Vick’s VapoRub…in the blue glass jar (now plastic), is by far the most special to me.
I was not a child that required attention. I was very healthy and active. I don’t remember being cuddled at all…but I do recall wanting to be.
It seems that my mom resolved every cold with this wonderful menthol gook. She would rub it on my chest and then make me do “inhalations” by putting some of the gook in a pot with boiling water and then making me inhale it. Which I believe also inadvertently gave me a facial!😂
I’ve often wondered if it truly did anything to help… but I did feel loved. I confess that I always, and will always have it in my home; and whenever I need comfort, all I have to do is open that little blue jar… and sniff!😊
