Why is today unlike other days? It is, in fact, not. Pretty busy for sure, but not terribly different. Except my email got hacked, so that is a little different. Oh, and the fundamentalists up the street accused my daughter of worshiping idols. That doesn’t happen every day. Other than that, though, the situation was pretty normal. Like when I got caught behind a line of buses on the way to work. There is a school right down the street so it is not uncommon that I get stuck behind a crapload of buses.
And I don’t know if the hippie dippie mechanics over at the Asheville City Schools bus garage really have the things running on biodiesel or not, but those things sure do smell like hamburgers to me. McDonald’s hamburgers, to be exact, with the pickle. I don’t mind the smell; kind of like it actually. It sends me back to trips to the McDonald’s in the town where I grew up. Those were exciting trips, because we only went there once a week. Or twice, maybe, if Mama was not into cooking.
The McDonald’s we went to had a playground, I think. Definitely outdoor tables. And this was back in the day when the McDonald’ses tried to pick up a little local color. Our town was named for Benjamin Franklin, so there was all this Benjamin Franklin stuff like that wack musical instrument with the glass bowls and a replica of his glasses. I don’t really get why the glasses because they were not that special, but I liked them because I wore glasses before anyone else I knew. So glasses were my thing.
Scotch tape was Auntie Kate’s thing, especially at Brumalia when she would tape a crapload of Hubba Bubba to the outside of our gifts. That was awesome. I got a little Christmas thrill the other day when I smelled some Scotch tape. Didn’t know what it was until I started in on the Hubba Bubba. Then I figured it out.
The weirdest smell thing I have going on is with money. Cash money. Mama used to give me cash money to buy lunch at school. One time the money must have been pretty new because the ink still smell pretty strong. I thought that was Mama’s perfume, and I went around all day taking little whiffs of the money. Somewhere along the line I realized that all money smells like that and it is unlikely that everyone is using Mama’s perfume. Still though, the smell of money reminds me of Mama, which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Either I get to remember her pretty much anytime I want or I’m constantly reminded of her absence by money. Given my relative lack of money, it’s not really all the constant.