Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Fragrances, Rock Bands, and Phones...Oh My!

More tales from the carpool today, which for me is a good thing because I was kind of scraping for a post idea. It was a good thing I had to drive the carpool this morning. Good grief, clearly, the early mornings are affecting my brain if I think schlepping 6 teenagers at 6 am in a borderline functional minivan (Poor Gracie really needs some work done on her.) is a good thing. I hope my judgment hasn't been so adversely affected that you read this whole post and click onto the next one shaking your head in disbelief at the drivel tossed out here. If you stick around to the end we can have some fun. Trust me.

One of the migraine triggers in my life is artificial fragrance. It's one of the reasons I don't wear perfume. Most women's perfume drive me right up the wall. The flowery scents are the worst. First my nose starts to itch, then the headache hits. My girls love perfume, but they have been well trained to check with me before the purchase any to see if it's one I can tolerate being around. I can tolerate fruity or spicy smells a little better so that's the compromise we've come to. It becomes a little more problematic when one of their friends gives them a gift without knowing this. Diana and Calypso have a few scents they know I absolutely cannot tolerate. May I just say Tommy Girl has to be one of the worst I've ever encountered, closely followed by any flowery thing from Bath & Body Works. I've been known to make them change clothes and wash if I catch a whiff of Tommy Girl. I've also ridden with the windows down in the car...in January...because they used it in the car. Seriously, I'm unwilling to endure a migraine for the sake of perfume. This morning in the carpool one girl passed around some Bath & Body Works stuff which is a known offender. They were a little shocked when the car heat went off and the cool air came on. Crisis averted.

The conversation turned to music as it often does. My car radio no longer plays nicely with the iPod adapter I have so we've been limited to radio stations with a lot of morning show nonsense but one finally played this song. I made the comment that I couldn't decide if I liked the song or if it got on my last nerve. The girls went round and round about which songs they have the same reaction to. I'm not talking about the music you completely loathe but the stuff that one day you could bop along to and the next day want to turn it off. Conversation progressed to musical groups and artists who produce one melody and just change up the lyrics for every "new" song. It was generally agreed that Nickelback falls squarely in this category.

The other main topic this morning was Eva's new Droid phone, which she just acquired last night. She was still exploring all its groovy features. She asked Calypso to text her so we could all hear the weird robot notification voice. I dunno, sounds like a robotic belch to me. Then she cycled through a bunch of ring tones. There seemed to be a whole sub-menu devoted to world music which caused Pris to exclaim, "It's like you can travel all over the world just on ring tones!" Eva continued to demonstrate the various features she had discovered and find more new ones. Several of them seem to be automatic features that require the user to do nothing before they kick in. Eva was delighted but eventually made the observation, "This thing is like almost alive! I think I'd better be nice to it or it may kill me in my sleep!"

Ok, so now that I've bored you nearly to tears with the content of my early morning carpool discussions I'll get to the whole point of this post. It's audience participation time so please answer the questions in your comment.

1. Which smells aside from the obvious rotting roadkill,/skunk spray/sewer gas, which are pretty universally accepted as putrid, do you find unpleasant and why?

2. In your mind, which songs straddle the line between "turn up the radio/shut that crap off?"

3. Which electronic device, appliance, or other mechanical device in your life do you need to be nice to so it doesn't kill you in your sleep?

23 comments:

Craver Vii said...

As for me, I love lots of smells and many kinds of perfumes and colognes. But I remember that in the 60's and early 70's, my mom had some fake roses with a pungent essence of rose. I think they were some kind of gel capsules. To me, that stuff stunk to high heaven, and I have not been a big fan of roses, even to this day.

g-man said...

1. Ass Matter..Including Flatulance other than my own! (BTW, mine smells like Roses)
2. My Electric Blanket!

S said...

1. I also HATE anything from Bath and Body works, and Avon, and well, the entire makeup department at Macys just smells terrible to me.
In fact when we are forced to walk through the macys makeup dept which is unavoidable at times, LR and I re enact the Sponge Bob/Patrick walking through makeup department gig....

I hate TUNA smells. Since I was pregnant, cannot take that smell, makes me wanna barf.

I HATE the smell of blooming trees in the spring they smell like nature spunk or something...seriously I cannot even walk down the street in our town when the stupid trees are blooming they stink so bad...

2. The song that I both LOVE and HATE right now is Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, but it does NOT play on radio. However, it pops up on my Itunes and then I cant get "Whatcha say....." outa my head for days! I have to be careful about that, because songs stick in my head and I will sing them over and over til the family wants to kill me.

3. I need to be nice to my sewing machines, all three of them, oil and clean regularly or they retaliate by sewing my fingertips.....

Have a great day.

~Dragonfly~* said...

1. Onions!!!! Highly allergic!!! They make me want to vomit!!!!

2. Crank up Josh Grobin (man, that boy can sing) turn off "rap crap"

3. My car!

misticblu said...

1. Anything by Axe.....nasty stuff.

2. Anything by pink

3. My blender

Desmond Jones said...

OK, I'm gonna assume that things like 'limburger cheese' and 'colitis farts' (vomit of all kinds, etc) will fall under the 'obvious' category. 'Over-the-line fridge stuff' (perhaps most especially steamed broccoli) can be really rank, but again, strikes me as 'obvious'.

As far as scents that people might wear, some of them can be a tad cloying, but nothing really makes me gag.

It's funny - 'My Love' can be really sweet when Molly and I are pitching woo, but sometimes when I'm listening to the radio in the car, it just makes me wanna gag. That "Wo-wo-wo-wo" can make me think, "what - you couldn't think of any lyrics?" But then, "only My Love holds the other key to me" can just melt me away, because it's so true to my own love. . .

And electronic devices are Devil Spawn. We keep an uneasy truce. . .

Ed & Jeanne said...

Work is one of my migrane triggers...

S said...

Here is Sponge and Pat in the perfume department.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaxtYOens2I&feature=related

Suldog said...

1 - Cooked cheeses, but not all of them. Mozzarella I'm OK with, and your generic American in a grilled cheese, no problem. But cook something with any of the stronger cheeses and I feel like puking. Same with butter. I like butter, but melt some in a frying pan and I have to leave the room.

2 - Interesting question. I can't come up with any right off the top of my head that truly fit the category. The first one that came to mind was "Baker Street", by Gerry Rafferty, but actually that started off as one I hated, but repeated listenings (while I was driving a school bus for special needs kids, oddly enough) had me looking forward to hearing it. I still like it, so I don't think it qualifies.

3 - The air conditioner, because it really could. On most hot nights, we leave it going. Sometimes, it freezes. And when it freezes, I think it could actually be shooting out noxious gasses; I don't know. So, I always speak kindly to it and let it know it's my friend.

Bijoux said...

1. I'm with you on hating the floral scents. I can take spicy perfume and the B&BWorks food scents are okay with me.

2. Christmas music. I'm a grinch I suppose. Mostly, it's just the same pop songs that they play over and over again that I can't tolerate after a while. Like Maroon 5 (actually used to like them; now hate them due to the overplaying of their songs).

3. I'm not fearful of any technology, but when the wireless internet goes out, I do start to sweat.

EmBee said...

1. The smell of bologna in the morning... Well actually any time of day, makes me wanna hurl! Because my step-mother MADE me make bologna sandwiches for my lunches when I was in school and I always hated the miserable stuff... And if it's pimento loaf, there'd better be a receptacle nearby in which I can empty the contents of my stomach.

2. Hmmmm? Nickleback is definitely on this list and I'm having a hard time coming up with anything as appropriate... Maybe ABBA, I either love it hate it.

3. Gotta be my vacuum... I just don't have much luck with vacuums.
:-(

Cooper said...

1. Courtney Love

2. Courtney Love

3. Courtney Love

Logophile said...

I HATE the smell of bananas, lilies, and fakey floral household products; cleaning solution, fabric softener, etc.
Axe body spray is disgusting, and most Glade Plugins make me want to hurl.
Love/hate song, Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon

Techie stuff and I are all good for now, I am watching out for Skynet though

secret agent woman said...

Cilantro. Makes me gag.

Not sure about the song, but my GPS seems to have an edge to her.

Chris said...

1. Hate the smell of a burning match. Horrific.

2. Good question. I guess it would probably be Free Bird. Good song, but waaaay too long.

3. My Blackberry. Hands down.

Maria said...

Ah! The vicissitudes of life!

Commander Zaius said...

1.) I have a problem with some of those residential air fresheners that you plug into the electrical receptacles. One or two, whose names escape me, hit me like a hammer between the eyes. Of course
My wife is totally obsessed with those damn things spreading them out in every room.

Another is the smell of new carpet. I will not go into a new house or building if that new carpet smell is even slightly present.

2.) Just about anything made during the 90's and after. Some songs I'll admit are great but others make no sense to me.

3.) Curiously enough that one is almost obvious. The last family computer we bought, about three years ago, was a Gateway. Out of the total of four computers bought for family use that sorry pile of crap has given the most problems.
Sometimes we have to restart two or three time because the keyboard will simply not function. Virus software will slow the machine down to the point that if you want to do any work its best to take it off. And some blog sites will send it into spasms, shutting down the internet connection resulting in the DSL modem having to reboot. The reason I know it’s the computer is that I reinstalled the previous family computer and it sails along without an issue on those blog sites.

Anonymous said...

sadly, the 'granny-in-law', who is a very good friend, adores Nickelback...however, me being me, i delight in calling them Stickleback at every opportunity, i just have to remember to be out of arms reach, lest i get a resounding slap...!!! ;)

Jocelyn said...

1. Yes, Psychic Sis, fake fragrances;

2) Anything by REO Speedwagon;

3) My vegetable sprayer.

Cricket said...

Hi Lime. Have slowly been working my way through your posts. So many blogs, so little time... Anyways:

1) I was once reduced to a retching, bleary-eyed mess by a package of tofu that was past its prime.

2) Cheesy 70s pop. Think Chevy Van or Afternoon Delight

3) My food processor has developed altogether too much personality of late. It already has an array of lethally sharp blades. Whisper it quietly...

Hilary said...

1) Cilantro. It smells/tastes like burning rubber or plastic to me

2) Almost anything that gets too much air time.

3) An electric heater.

Unknown said...

1) Fake vanilla. I like the real-deal stuff from my kitchen cabinet, but that's where it ends. If air freshener or perfume is "vanilla" scented, I can't stand it. Only thing worse than that is Stargazer Lilies and hyacinths. I'm fine with the white Easter lilies and the tiger lilies, but those Stargazer ones knock me right out. Actually had to have a bouquet of them removed from my mom's viewing and funeral services because they were giving me a migraine.

2) Anything that's overplayed really starts to get to me, but then in a year or 2 I can tolerate it.

3) I don't do gas grills or weed whackers. That's the hubby's domain.

Anonymous said...

1. Any of those expensive fragrences that smell like bug spray--Red and Calvin Klien. etc.
Tires! I can't stand going into a place that sells tires.

2. (Here's where I show my age.) The Mamas and the Papas I always loved their songs but since Miss Philips came out with her book they give me the creeps.

3. My microwave. It's from 1984 and it's huge and I think it's looking at me funny.

Sal's Girl