I’ve noticed over the years, as the linen displaced burlap and took over the pattern room, that a hum was gathering in the four corners, sometimes drifting out into the main shop with a distinctive pong. The back room can be pretty heady with hundreds of patterns hanging; the lingering odor permeating everything. My nose is more sensitive than most, my hubby says I should take a job sniffing out bombs and drugs at the airport. Big Ha-ha. Sometimes being able to smell acutely is a bloody curse, assaulted by odors that I will spare you the details of.
If I had a dollar for every time I droned on about the stench of the back pattern room, Deborah, Shane and I could all retire. I might be a broken record but the smell bothers me, not in the sense that it makes me ill; it’s more of an embarrassment worrying what customers will think of the shop. It’s bad enough Shane is dyeing wool all day, that also hums up the place with a distinctive smell akin to a wet dog. I’m told I’m imagining things, that I’m nuts, that it’s nowhere near the caliber to which I complain of, but my nose knows. Linen smells like a barnyard. Yup, there I said it. It’s a heady mixture of cow dung and hay, a country farmer’s ode de toilette.
To clarify the degree of my olfactory talents, if the average person can smell say 5 on the odor meter, I am somewhere between 12-20. I think it developed back in the day when I suffered severe allergies, heightening my sense of smell so that I could get an early warning I was about to walk into something offensive so I could retreat before I stepped into lasting, negative effects. I’m well now, but this gift/curse has remained. Of course there are benefits, the flavours of food are more intense, flowers are brilliant and I know when my deodorant is failing or when its time to clean the refrigerator. It’s really too bad I don’t enjoy the taste of wine because I would make a fantastic sommelier.
Some days are better than others depending on temperatures and whether or not the pattern room is lacking ventilation. Humidity brings out the worst in the woven flax, spinning it out of olfactory control and at times, on particularly sticky days, I’ve apologized to customers, blaming the stink where it belongs, trying to circumvent their thinking that my entire shop smells like a pile of steamy horse manure. I’m super conscious of it and bless the hearts and souls of those who have come into the shop and reassured me that I was wrong, obviously beyond sweet and nose blind.
Well, two weekends ago the shop was crammed to the rafters with some of the 30,000 visitors that converged on our town for the Annual Scarecrow Festival. It was standing room only on the sidewalks and traffic jams as folks arrived in droves to see the fantastic show of clever effigies of the resident’s and store owner’s imaginations that were displayed across town.
A boy of around ten came in with his grandparents and he wasn’t there long when he said rather loudly with a wrinkled up nose, “This place stinks!” Followed by, “Papa, why does it smell like a barn in here?” The grandfather tried to rein him in with a hush, but the boy got one more comment in as he dragged away, “It smells like poop in here!”
And then the truth teller was gone, arms flailing as he was quickly hustled out the door.
The shop was full of people; I started laughing and shouted, “Finally someone speaks the truth!”
All eyes turned to me. The grandmother, left behind to shop, looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Out of the mouths of babes!” I cried.
So I’ve been vindicated although confirmation isn’t exactly a good thing, my shop obviously smells like poop which is nothing to be proud of. The kid must have an over-developed olfactory sense like mine, where most only detect a hint of something but cannot quite put their finger on it he sniffed out the ugly fact. Who knows why this boy was the only one to ever speak the truth, but now the truth has set me free, proving that I’m not crazy after all!
If I had a dollar for every time I droned on about the stench of the back pattern room, Deborah, Shane and I could all retire. I might be a broken record but the smell bothers me, not in the sense that it makes me ill; it’s more of an embarrassment worrying what customers will think of the shop. It’s bad enough Shane is dyeing wool all day, that also hums up the place with a distinctive smell akin to a wet dog. I’m told I’m imagining things, that I’m nuts, that it’s nowhere near the caliber to which I complain of, but my nose knows. Linen smells like a barnyard. Yup, there I said it. It’s a heady mixture of cow dung and hay, a country farmer’s ode de toilette.
To clarify the degree of my olfactory talents, if the average person can smell say 5 on the odor meter, I am somewhere between 12-20. I think it developed back in the day when I suffered severe allergies, heightening my sense of smell so that I could get an early warning I was about to walk into something offensive so I could retreat before I stepped into lasting, negative effects. I’m well now, but this gift/curse has remained. Of course there are benefits, the flavours of food are more intense, flowers are brilliant and I know when my deodorant is failing or when its time to clean the refrigerator. It’s really too bad I don’t enjoy the taste of wine because I would make a fantastic sommelier.
Some days are better than others depending on temperatures and whether or not the pattern room is lacking ventilation. Humidity brings out the worst in the woven flax, spinning it out of olfactory control and at times, on particularly sticky days, I’ve apologized to customers, blaming the stink where it belongs, trying to circumvent their thinking that my entire shop smells like a pile of steamy horse manure. I’m super conscious of it and bless the hearts and souls of those who have come into the shop and reassured me that I was wrong, obviously beyond sweet and nose blind.
Well, two weekends ago the shop was crammed to the rafters with some of the 30,000 visitors that converged on our town for the Annual Scarecrow Festival. It was standing room only on the sidewalks and traffic jams as folks arrived in droves to see the fantastic show of clever effigies of the resident’s and store owner’s imaginations that were displayed across town.
A boy of around ten came in with his grandparents and he wasn’t there long when he said rather loudly with a wrinkled up nose, “This place stinks!” Followed by, “Papa, why does it smell like a barn in here?” The grandfather tried to rein him in with a hush, but the boy got one more comment in as he dragged away, “It smells like poop in here!”
And then the truth teller was gone, arms flailing as he was quickly hustled out the door.
The shop was full of people; I started laughing and shouted, “Finally someone speaks the truth!”
All eyes turned to me. The grandmother, left behind to shop, looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Out of the mouths of babes!” I cried.
So I’ve been vindicated although confirmation isn’t exactly a good thing, my shop obviously smells like poop which is nothing to be proud of. The kid must have an over-developed olfactory sense like mine, where most only detect a hint of something but cannot quite put their finger on it he sniffed out the ugly fact. Who knows why this boy was the only one to ever speak the truth, but now the truth has set me free, proving that I’m not crazy after all!
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