“You smell nice,” he said.
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For a moment I basked in the compliment. It had been a particularly hot day and in order to freshen up, I had washed my face and spritzed with a bit of light perfume.
I’m not a big perfume wearer. I often don’t like the perfume as much as I thought I did when I first applied it. And it makes me sneeze a bit.
But here we were, feeling fresh and summery and greeted with a nice compliment to boot. The flatterer was in Year 3 at school and his age made his compliment all the more special. This was a young man destined to woo the girls with finesse.
“I was in a hotel once and you sort of smell like that – – you know in the foyer where you pay. Yes, you smell a lot like that smell in the lobby,” he said.
Hmm. I’ve gone from fresh and flowery to a hotel lobby. In my head, I imagined a very expensive hotel with expensive flowers coming in and out and lots of fragrances intermingling from the well heeled guests. From a boy in Year 3, I could cope with this.
“Actually you smell a bit like the car park before you get to the hotel. I got out of the car and I could smell that smell.”
Things were sliding fast. Now the rather expensive Bvlgari spritz now had undertones of petroleum and exhaust.
“No, it wasn’t the car park at the hotel. It was the carpark at the zoo. There are lots of gates at the zoo and I could smell that smell when we got out of the car there,” he said.
The compliment was starting to turn. Was this, in fact, a compliment at all? Now, I had progressed to undertones of petrol, exhaust and animal.
“No, I think it may have been the zoo itself. Yes, that’s the smell. I just knew it was from our trip to Sydney. You smell a lot like the zoo,” he said.
If there was any doubt that this may have been put forward as a compliment, this was now completely out of the window. I didn’t ask what animal cage he was in front of when this delightful scent of Bvlgari assailed his olfactory senses. I like to think someone sophisticated and recently sprayed with Bvlgari was standing alongside.
– Linda Muller
