Miss Wisabus

Pride brings the fall of so many. As a kid, there wasn’t much I could imagine being prideful about. I was pretty plain (in my mind) and I never thought of myself as perfect or beautiful or anything like that.

Then I read Anne of Green Gables. What Anne was proud of was her straight, rather handsome nose.

I looked at my own and was shocked. Never before had I paid much attention to the slope of my schnoz. It was straight.

Now, this may not seem too special, but no one in my family has a straight nose. At the time, my youngest brother did, but a well-aimed punch a few years ago scarred his profile for life. Everyone else was born with some funky bump in the middle.

So there I was, pleased as could be about my nose.

Somewhere around that time, I started waking up early in the morning before my alarm would sound (this was in grade school). It was the smell of my mom cooking bacon waking me before 6am. Most people would find this experience pleasant, but it was an assault on my senses. There was gagging and slight nausea, but I survived.

Then came college. And again, the theme here is me waking before I should because of a smell. This time? Vomit in the hallway. I’d like to thank the ladies of Couch Tower, Floor 3, 2004-2005 for sharing your revelry in the hallway outside my dorm room. Thank you.

And so, it is clear that because of my prideful ways I have been cursed with hyperosmia (I have the cluster headaches and migraines that go along with it as well). In this house, a full trash bag cannot be left in the kitchen overnight. Not unless you want the smell waking me at 2am and then me waking my husband as I take out the trash at that hour.

At work it has comedic results. There is much gagging and leaving the room whenever a stench enters that I can’t tolerate. And then our nurse tells me she sure hopes that I stick around there long enough for everyone to see me in the early stages of pregnancy — because CLEARLY, that’s going to be a fun time for everyone. My desk is a mere 7 (long) strides from the nearest restroom, so I should be taken care of.

All this to say that I am one of Yankee Candle Co.’s best customers. I know, very mid- to late-90s of me.

(Those are the spoils from last weekend’s shopping trip. Managed to get 3 for the price of a little over 1 with my mad couponing skills + sales.)

I get pretty out-of-hand with air fresheners, odor absorbers, plug-ins, potpourri warmers, incense, and candles. If you have any major allergy issues then it’s likely my house would mean certain death for you. Don’t worry, it’s not overkill. My husband doesn’t complain so I know it must not smell too strongly. But when you’re fighting the smell of “old man” that still comes out of the walls if we aren’t properly circulating the air (which means every ceiling fan in every room of the house is on 365 days each year) you’ve got to break out the big guns.

And if the big guns just happen to smell like baked goods, well, who’s to argue with that?