yo! homes! smell you later.

i have been thinking about personal fragrance lately. you know it as the liquid you splash or spray on your body in an effort to make everyone think you smell better than you do. we all know better. if you are lucky, your body emits such little odor (ok. aroma. do you fell better? ) that it is almost undetectable. unfortunates smell like a double-cheeseburger with extra onions chased with a greasy slice of pepperoni only 30 minutes after emerging -freshly scrubbed- from the shower. i guess we employ it in an effort to attract the opposite sex. or at least we won't offend everyone else in the elevator. so, now that you realize you need to mask yourself- what to do?

my first recollection of cologne comes from when i was a boy. my mom sold avon for about 20 minutes one time. my family sucks in the area of personal sales. it's just a genetic disconnect. what are you gonna do? so, avon used to sell this stuff that came in a glass bottle shaped like a deussenburg. a discriminating young man (like me) would remove the spare tire from the rear of the car, spill some of this crap all over himself, and cough half the way to school. see, the fumes were toxic in large amounts. sort of like the turpentine-based stuff sam malone used to such great effect on the women of boston. on the other hand, of you own a sailboat, it would be a great solvent for stripping the deck.

in middle and high schools, everyone was wearing cologne. you surely couldn't leave the house "naked." how embarrassing. it seemed like almost everyone on my football team wore "polo." our locker room and school were rank with it. i never understood why you would want to smell like everyone else. so i wore chaps, and obsession, and paco rabanne. not all at the same time. at 19, i went on a two year mission for my church, and i didn't see much use in wasting the money and cologne on people who would never be near enough to smell it , anyway. when i came home, i wore some lemon- based thing that i stole from my brother (sorry, dude.) it was great. i've never smelled so clean. when it ran out, i didn't know where to get more, so i went back to paco. over the subsequent years, i've tried several -more expensive - offerings from chanel and givenchy. very nice, but nothing i fell in love with.

frank sinatra wore the same thing for decades. agua lavanda it's called. i've never smelled it , but i think it's from avon. at 30$ for 7 oz. , it very well might be. besides, what comes in a 7 oz. bottle that you don't pour over ice and drink? maybe he was on the right track. maybe i need a signature fragrance that i'd wear every day, you'll not likely smell on someone else, and will leave you remembering me and not my natural scents.

lately i've come full circle and returned to the friendly confines of paco rabanne. the only problem is that i can only find it at heb. when in the world did i think i would ever buy fragrance at a grocery store? at least i don't buy it at the discount- it could be worse. it's really pretty low quality stuff. the fragrance wears off too soon; and it doesn't come in a parfum, only in a toilette. that'll be ok. i used to read that the only person who should get more than just a hint of your fragrance is one lucky enough to be snuggled up close. i guess i'll just have to wear a little extra when the weather turns cold. then again, that chanel i tried the other day was lovely. here we go again.