Smells

There is something unusual about our sense of smell. We don't focus on it much, but the right smell can bring memories flooding back, good or bad. As little as our culture relies on it, and our species, we have such a wide range of smell-related products that it's rather amazing. Sound, which we rely on far more, isn't treated in such a manner. Despite the large music industry, there are no plug-in ambiance sound machines (not counting sleep machines) that I'm aware of.

As a species, our sense of smell is probably about the least used. Once we raised up off of all fours, it just became somewhat redundant. Sure, it still comes in handy sometimes, and some people have fairly good senses of smell (for better or worse), but we don't rely on it. Animals like dogs trust smell more than sight even. Touch we will always need for interacting with the world around us, sight we use more than any other, taste tells us when something shouldn't be eaten, sound is, while less important than sight, our second most used sense. But smell? It could eventually evolve right off of our faces. For people in polluted cities, that's probably a blessing.

So why do we focus so much on smell? We ignore textural things except for things we wear or sit/sleep on. Sound is reduced to entertainment and communication, mostly using visual media as well. Taste is innately limited to food and drink, so that one doesn't count, although we take little time (in this country) to prepare truly great food. Art, which is supposed to appeal to the senses, ignores the chemical-based senses. Yet go into a super-store and there's at least one full aisle devoted to candles, air fresheners, plug ins, and bowls of wood chips and clearish things that look like hard jello but smell... well... not bad, but a bit strong for my taste.

The point I'm actually trying to make is that God for all of these smell-related products. I have two candles lit (completely different scents), I sprayed both kinds of air fresheners that I have (two completely different scents from each other and the candles), and I just brewed some coffee, half for the smell, half for the caffeine. All of this in attempting to overpower the smell of polyurethane coming from my bathroom. Apart from the headache (ok, the coffee was half for that, too, even if that is three halves), I just hate the chemical smell. But it's worth it. I have finished painting my bathroom floor and there are two coats of poly-u on it to seal it. Unusual floor treatment, I know, and visually unusual as well, but I'm happy with it. It's unique, rather funky, and I had all of the needed materials. It's far better than having carpet in there.