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Smell memories?
Heh. I couldn't really think of a better title.
So I've been working on an extensive remodel in my mom's new apartment building - in two of the five units, we tore down walls, put new ones in, strung wires, all the good stuff. To facilitate the framing, we bought a Paslode gas operated nail gun. In the course of the remodel, I think I've probably fired well over 1000 nails.
When you prepare the gun to fire, you must depress a safety catch, and when that safety catch is depressed, a little bit of gas - just enough to get a whiff - is released from the cartridge. After countless hours of framing, shimming, and strapping, I literally smell this thing in my sleep. I can't stop smelling it.
Well, except for a few minutes ago, when (for whatever reason) I distinctly smelled - get this - a rubber bouncy ball. Like the kind you can buy for a quarter from a machine outside supermarkets (at least in Maine).
The one that happens the most often for me, however, is this: I'll usually be walking along the streets of the city I live in now, and I'll smell hot dogs. Not just any hot dogs, however, but hot dogs from Mark's Hot Dogs, a hot dog stand that only operates during the summer, but it's been there every summer for as long as I can remember. And I usually smell them during the winter. Weird, huh?
This happens to me pretty frequently, when I'll smell something (or imagine I smelled it), and it will conjure a very specific image. I hear that this happens a lot, so I'm wondering... what do you smell? When you're walking down the street, or when you wake up in the middle of the night, what do you absolutely need to have?
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