This morning, as soon as I opened the door to the basement, I thought of all the years I was greeted with the smell of musty Fels Naptha. Actually, I got it partly wrong. The Oughts (Is that what these years are) smell, too. They smell phony, as Holden Caufield would say. So, I wrote this as an addendum to the Forties Smelled Funny:

"When I got up this morning, the first thing I did was head downstairs to my office. When I opened the door to the basement, I thought wistfully about that musty, scummy smell of Fels Naptha. Instead of that old familiar odor, my nostrils were hit with a powerful blast of Mountain Glade. Or maybe it's Orchard Sunrise. I'd rather have smelled Fels Naptha.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out a drawer in the downstairs bathroom and came across an unopened Glade air freshener. I opened it and slid it into the little slot of nthe side of the combination night light-air freshener and immediately realized I'd made a mistake. I threw the package away so I don't remember which scent it was supposed to be, but they all sound as artificial as they smell. I'd prefer the smell of those artifical roses that Babby Darin used to sing about. If nature smelled like Glade air fresheners, I'd seal the windows and never leave the house. Maybe people today just want to experience nature through a TV set or an air freshener. Heck, you can even buy a Glad Light Show air freshener. I haven't bought one, but if they're doing it right, it should smell like incense and come with a tye-died t-shirt..

Jerry