Something smells...

I love smell goods. The soft, sweet smell and pure, clean breath of a brand new baby; fresh, salty, ocean air with that faint whiff of coconut oil floating by; the smoky, slightly nutty aroma of freshly brewed coffee on a lazy Saturday morning; the fresh air and newly mown grass smell that clings to my husband when he comes in after working in the yard, and yes, even the faint perspiration odor that sometimes accompanies his efforts. I love them all, and I love perfume too. Sweet, flowery, or spicy; perfume, cologne, or toilet water -- I like them.

I'm not terribly crazy about eau de' poop though, especially eau de' cow poop. Have you ever smelled cow manure that's accumulated in a barn over a long, long winter, been processed who-knows-how and then spread in liquid form on the fields behind your house to infuse the air for miles around as it bakes in the warm spring sun? Well, hey, you just haven't lived! There's nothing to compare -- it's enough to gag a maggot! But, I digress... along with the cow stuff, I don't like the smell of cigars, alcohol breath, the blue cheese my husband likes, or the anchovies a good friend likes. They offend my olfactory senses.

Of course it's all subjective, we all have our likes and dislikes; what may be offensive to some, doesn't even show up on the radar for others. The farmer, for instance, clearly doesn't mind and has adapted to the smell of cow poop. Otherwise, he'd have chosen another vocation. I, on the other hand, do mind. I want him to take his smelly cows somewhere else because their odor offends me. It makes me gag and gives me a headache and makes me feel sick and besides that, I just don't like it. I'm thinking I should be able to ask him nicely to change his behavior, and because I asked him nicely, he should stop with the cow poop already. He shouldn't be so inconsiderate with his cow poop and should accommodate me and make my discomfort go away. Is that such an unreasonable request??

Uhmmmm, yessss, of course it is. It's unreasonable to expect our world to get better at the expense of someone else. We're constantly surrounded by odors. Good odors, bad odors, neutral odors -- odors. There's really no getting away from them. They're all part of the world we live in and we all have to adapt to that world, to deal with the good and the bad and to exercise whatever options are available to us for dealing. I have the option of closing the windows and doors. I can use air purifiers. I can spray my house full of perfume. I can even move. Or, I can get over myself and accept the fact that the world doesn't revolve around me and my delicate sensibilities. I can worry instead about the really important stuff -- stuff that I can do something about without being offensive myself in the process.

I don't think we have the right to expect that someone should change what matters to them to accommodate what matters to us. Whether it's perfume, or cow poop, or smelly fish. I think it's a case of oh well, too bad, so sad -- it's my problem and I'll work it out.

But that's just me...