Sunday, January 06, 2008

I stood in the cleaning products aisle at the grocery store and stared at the dishwasher detergent selection. My usual choice, the unscented one, was out of stock. I was stumped.

Now I was forced to make the same decision for my dishes that I've had to make for many other items. What do I want my dishes to smell like?

How can there possibly be one odor that I want applied to all my dishes? What fragrance works well with coffee mugs, butter dishes, spatulas, wine glasses, plates, and forks? I'll tell you which fragrance. NONE! That choice wasn't available though. Instead, I had to choose between: Lemon, Orchard Splash, and Fresh.

Lemon is a nice fragrance, but I don't want it near my coffee, bacon, cereal, sandwiches, burgers, ice cream, etc. There are hardly any foods that I want to be lemony.

However, I'll say this for lemon. The number of foods that I want lemon scented absolutely DWARFS the number that I want orchard splash scented. Orchard splash? Is this a smell that I should know? Is there anything splashing in an orchard that smells good? My god. Just a terrible terrible idea. I guess someone else had already patented Septic Splash.

So, by the process of elimination, I chose Fresh. I'm not sure what freshness they've captured the odor for. Will my food smell like fresh fish? Will it be laundry fresh? I have no idea. I'm praying it isn't a reference to the old Massengill commercials and their "not so fresh feeling". I don't need my dishes douched.

When I got home, I found Hank sitting in the living room, working on her laptop.

"Hey, what do you want your dishes to smell like?" I asked.

Hank bolted upright, completely startled.

"My dentist?!?!" she cried out, alarmed. "What should he smell like?! Uh..... minty?"

I busted up. It wasn't just that she mis-heard me, it was that she was so very traumatized by the question that she thought I had asked, as though I was on the verge of some evil scheme to perfume the dentists of America. Also, she picked a great answer. Dentists SHOULD smell minty, goddammit!

After I had cleared up the misunderstanding about my desire to smell-graffiti her dentist, Hank confirmed that I had made the right choice with the detergent. Fresh was the safest choice.

She revoked that opinion once I let her sniff it.

6 comments:

Avery Gray said...

Wow. You put a lot of thought into your selection. I probably would have just grabbed the nearest bottle to me because, well, that's the way I roll. Efficient, non-straining, and who the hell sniffs their dishes anyway?

But Hank was right. Dentists should smell minty. I DO sniff my dentist.

Mike said...

A bottle? Oh, man, right there we diverge. Why would I pay for the privilege of carrying water around?

Lia Hollander said...

Ours is Green Apple. Hey, maybe I'm eating more fruit than I originally thought.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I just laughed so hard I woke up one of my kids. Damn you! (picture me shaking my fist in a melodramatic fashion...actually, umm, don't. I haven't showered yet.)

Avery Gray said...

Well, if all things were equal, I'd say it's because solid detergents leave spots on the dishes and tend to gum up the pipes. But since I don't know a) how well your dishwasher rinses, b) what type of water you have, c) how often you clean your pipes, or d) how much any of this matters to you, I can't really say why YOU would pay for said privilege.

I get liquid detergent for the handle. Makes carrying a breeze.

Mike said...

Miss B, mmmm, green apple pasta, green grilled cheese, and green apple burgers. Yummy!

Kimberly, I apologize about waking the kids. That's a big drag. However, I haven't showered yet either, so I'm good with that fist shaking thing.

Avery, dang, those are good reasons. Screw powder!