The Little Scent That Followed
What’s that smell? I wonder how many times I asked myself that very same question last week. I remember inspecting the soles of my shoes for the hitchhiking remnants of city pooches. I am sure that I gave some innocent souls near me sneering looks of the go-take-a-bath kind. What I thought to be different smells throughout the last two weeks, were in fact one same smell. It was a little stinky cloud reminiscent of that little wisp of grey odeur désagréable that followed Monsieur Pepe le Pew, which now seemed to shadow me.
It turns out that a few weeks ago while placating to the needs of a munchies attack, I walked into the local Japanese market. Oishi sugoi desu ne! MMM. All of those tasty Japanese treats were lined up in bright packaging beckoning my attention. I struggled with katakana trying to decipher the different flavors of the yummy snacks and after 15min; I walked out with quite a few items.
I later sat on the train and ate my goodies. The very same train, which I would later sit and secretly give people I suspected of smelliness, bad looks in. That day however, the only fragrant scents were those of a Peach flavored soft drink, red bean pastries, and a few seaweed-wrapped rice & salmon balls. I ravaged it all up, all that is, minus that one seaweed-wrapped rice & salmon ball (hereafter, onigiri) I would save for later.
That saved for later moment never came. It was forgotten and not remembered until today. It hit me the moment I discovered that long forgotten onigiri and realized what that little scent that followed was. I laughed out loud and I kind of startled those around me in the train before long enough for quick what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-him looks before they remembered that it was NY and that crazy people aren’t an oddity just part of the scenery.
I thank God for three things. One thing is that the onigiri was tripled wrapped in the grocery bag that it came in, two, is that I didn’t use that particular bag everyday of these last two weeks and lastly that I wear my cologne heavy.
Moral of the story:
People with old stinky seaweed-wrapped rice & salmon balls (I mean onigiri’s) should not cringe their noses at those who don’t have any.