Air Freshener? Really?

 I  invited my daughter Jen over for dinner last night. She and her daughter came. It was a delightful meal  I must admit. I made Halibut Olympia and English pea salad. We also had some pickled beets and green jello with pears. Lovely. Afterwards she wanted to either go on a walk or a drive. I opted for the drive since my legs were sore from climbing up and down the ladder yesterday slapping some paint on the house. For whatever reason, Jen loves car air fresheners. I don't know why. There have been plenty of times when I wish I'd had one for my car, like after I've hauled bait in the front seat or packed a load of neoprene gloves that I use to clean fish. Inevitably they get holes in them and of course the blood and slime gets inside and it doesn't take long for them to exude a stench that can take your breath away, or perhaps you just wish it would. Anyway, we went for a drive in her car last night, and upon entering I noticed an overpowering smell. Initially  it wasn't totally unpleasant, but as we drove along, it started to bother me. The air freshener said it was lemon, but that's not what I smelled. Perhaps it was because she had six or eight other fresheners hanging on her shift lever, dangling like fruit on a tree. I don't know why she doesn't just discard the old one's. Perhaps she's being frugal and trying to extract every last molecule of scent from each one. Maybe she's just lazy and doesn't want to take off the old ones, I don't know She claimed it smelled strong because it was new. I replied that I'd rather smell a fart, and of course that started a whole new conversation; hence this blog post. We discussed marketing a line of air fresheners that stank. We could call them HIG's-  short for Hot Intestinal Gasses. You could purchase varying degrees of stench, depending on who you were trying to repel. We've all experienced uninvited or unwanted guests in our life. If you had company that was only mildly annoying, you could buy the popcorn fart HIG. Unpleasant, but not totally overwhelming, just enough to make the guest uncomfortable. For the guest who doesn't know when to leave perhaps the Wet One's HIG would be in order. You only bring it out after numerous yawns and glances at the clock have failed to imply that you are tired and want to go to bed and you wish they would leave. For really hard core cases, the Pants Load HIG would be in order. You would plug it in to a socket and a small fan would circulate the stench throughout your home. That way regardless of whether you're talking in the kitchen, the dining room, den or living room, the whole house will stink. We once had a couple who befriended us. I didn't know either one of them all that well, but in the course of an innocent conversation I had mentioned not having shot a deer yet. The man insisted on giving us one. He even butchered it and packaged it up. I was thankful and somewhat overwhelmed by his generosity. Well, pretty soon his wife was coming down to visit Jan during the day. Initially she would stay for an hour or two and then leave. As time progressed, she would come  every day and stay until almost supper time. Then it got worse. After spending the whole afternoon here, her and her husband would come by after supper. This went on for weeks. Finally we stopped answering the phone, for fear it was one of them. Jan was familiar with the sound of the lady's car, and when she heard it pull up, she would drop to the floor and hide. They finally got the message, but it was a most painful experience. Had there only been HIG's around then, we could have dealt with the situation in a much timelier fashion. I'm going to be traveling soon, and will be a house guest at several different homes. I hope that if the unmistakable scent of hot intestinal gasses starts to waft around the room, I'll take the hint and go get a hotel room.