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?