Plonq, why are you smelling the cat?

[plonq]

I was sitting here this evening, chatting with a friend in Boston and holding the cat in my lap.  While I talked, I noticed a faint, sweet, not unpleasant smell reminiscent of cucumbers being sliced in the next room.  I knew we hadn't had cucumbers for dinner, so I assumed it was just my imagination.  It was faint enough to be on the threshold of my olfactory awareness, and for awhile I thought that maybe it was just my imagination.  Soon, though, the smell was undeniable and I began trying to figure out its source.  I made the connection between the cat jumping up on my lap and my first noticing the smell.  I did what anyone would have done in a situation like that.

I began sniffing the top of her head to see if I could figure out what she had gotten into. 

Just then atara glanced over and asked (a rather reasonable question, IMO), "Why are you smelling the cat?"  I explained about the strange smell and asked if she could not also smell it.  Apparently she couldn't, and I again began to wonder if it was all in my head.  I seem to remember that stroke victims sometimes experience phantom smells.  On the other hand I wasn't experiencing any other stroke symptoms, so perhaps it was something on my shirt, or maybe I was radiating the smell from my pores.  What would cause one to emit the essence of a sliced cucumber?

Anyway, sometime later atara caught a whiff of it too and suddenly remembered that she had plugged in the new scented oil deodorizer and cranked it up to 11 full strengh.  Sure enough, that turned out to be the cause of the phantom odour.  The bathroom at the far end of the house smelled... interesting.  Nothing at all like sliced cucumber.

As for the cat, well, she smelled like a cat.

Comments

I remember...

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

...I was reading the book, "White Dragon" in the "Dragonriders of Pern" series by Mercedes Lackey, and I was always getting the barest hint of rose whenever I flipped the page. I didn't figure it out until I read through the entire book, but wow...

I remembered every single detail from that book, and remembered it with *VERY* favorable emotions. It's one of my favorite books, and I will always associate the light scent of roses with Jaxom his beautiful white dragon, Ruth.

Someone had spilled rosewater on the book. It dried and the scent remained, just barely there. You could smell it when you sniffed deeply at the binding, but only caught whiffs when flipping pages....just enough to imprint pleasantly on your mind.

[takaza.livejournal.com]

You should of said, 'I can smell its brains'

[pardouncia.livejournal.com]

My cat smells a bit like cinnamon. It's hard to place. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister some months back. I was just making idle conversation when I mentioned, "Murky smells a bit like cinnamon while Ember(my other cat) smells more like tea." I didn't realize how crazy that sounded until after I said it. So great, another reason for my family to think I'm insane. Like the growling isn't enough.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Because when I smell the fish, they flop around.