I can't seem to forget you, your Windsong stays on my mind



I thought I would be safe from olfactory trauma today since I'm working in the children's area. Only adults accompanied by children are allowed in this section, which eliminates most of our... riper patrons, who tend to be understandably solo.

Well, I now know that there are worse smells than diseased, unwashed bodies on the verge of hepatic failure: namely perfume, perfume indiscriminately applied with criminal abandon by a French woman. (I don't like to knock nationalities or perpetuate stereotypes needlessly, but I'm going to have to say this woman was from France because I heard her scold her daughter in rapid fire French and she spoke with a thick French accent. Plus her condescension was palpable).

She was sitting with her daughter at the table next to the reference desk when I first was bludgeoned by her thick floral scent. As the smell began to permeate the air around me, it went from cloying, to nasal assault, to nasal rape levels. I kept waiting for that sweet, merciful scientific phenomenon known as adaptation, when the odor molecules fully saturate your receptors and your brain stops registering a particularly strong smell, but that just never happened. I'm home now and my nose still burns.