It’s not quite time for the children to get up for school yet. They still reside in the happy world of dreams, peaceful angels in their slumber. In the sleepy darkness before dawn, they have no inkling of the battle raging in the house around them.
Daddy is ready to leave for work. Showered and shaved, he has even applied the coating of lotion to his hands and face that Mommy insisted he start doing because she doesn’t want him to dry out like the old prune he is.
He steps into the bathroom where Mommy is drying her hair. He gives her a kiss and a “Love you,” then turns to leave, thinking he has escaped it this morning.
“Did you spray?” Her question freezes him in his tracks.
“No,” he sheepishly admits.
And then the chase is on.
It all started . . .
in the after-Christmas, clearance section of Target. Mommy found two half-priced gift boxes of scented items – one for Him and one for Her. Having both a Him and a Her in their marriage, Mommy deemed the pair of boxes a good bargain. They were lotions and perfumes (I guess men’s perfume is called cologne, but I don’t know much about it), the kind of gift that says “You were at the bottom of my list and I was long past being thoughtful by then. Also, you smell bad.”
Smelly enough for a woman, but made for a man. Say it with your deepest voice: “Cologne. “
Mommy was within her rights to pay half-price to smell the way she wished, but Daddy protested buying perfume to cover up his traditional Head & Shoulders scent (he still needs to shampoo the sides of his head). Daddy’s protests were in vain.
It actually all started . . .
decades ago on a dairy farm. Coming out of the barn, the boy Daddy learned the way to coexist with polite society was to divest himself of stink, not to purposely apply stink to himself. Nobody ever ran away from a farm kid they couldn’t smell. If he had nothing else going for him, at least they couldn’t blame him for smelling like air.
It also started . . .
in an upper-middle-class, suburban school, where the young Mommy’s friends wore designer clothes and had leisure to discover their own signature scents. They all smelled like something different, but none of them smelled like air or Head & Shoulders. None of the good ones did, anyway.
It ends this way.
Daddy runs. Mommy grabs the spray bottle of worldly man scent and chases him. After a moment, Daddy gives up his foolish hope of escape. All his flight will do is wake the children. He allows Mommy to shoot him a few times.
Mommy breathes deep. “Oh, you smell so good!” she says, dreamy in the eyes. But it’s nearly time for the children to wake, so she sends Daddy off to work to delight the nostrils of other people.
Daddy drives off to work, wondering if there isn’t a better time of day for the war to end.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
My wife prefers cologne that have that fresh-out-of-the-shower-clean smell. So I have to dish out a LOT of money to buy cologne that would make me smell like well, I just walked out of a shower. It would be cheaper to just, well shower, wouldn’t it?
OK I lie, I use Hugo Boss. Because I am. The. Boss.
Ahdad – Haha! That is funny. Showers *would* be cheaper. Maybe just change the type of soap you use and she’ll never notice that you’ve stopped putting on cologne.
At least you smell like the boss and that’s half way there.
As a farm girl, I know exactly what you mean. The only perfume I saw while growing up was an old tiny bottle that my mom kept hidden away in her bedroom. Wearing scents was not something we were taught to do. We were just taught to make sure all the horse and cow manure was off of our shoes before we got on the school bus. It was my husband who got me into this whole perfume thing. After 9 years, I’m still trying to train myself to put it on.
Odorless was what we spent our young lives aspiring to, and suddenly it’s not good enough. It’s the cruel fate of the farm kid.
Ha! I agree.
I think we share similar battles in this household. Hubby hates scents (Aka Cologne) I love he’s scented…
Send him into a cattle barn for a day/ he’ll come out plenty scented.
Umm no! lol He’s an old farm boy though too.
Which may be why he doesn’t like to stink.
I’m not winning this one am I?!
Don’t argue stink with a farm kid.
Ha! So I’ll just have to learn from your wife and run after him with the cologne. 😉
Like I use to tell my dog when he wanted to chase a deer: “You shouldn’t start chasing him until you know what you’ll do if you catch him.”
Spray him with cologne..
Start the chase then.
Oh it’s on!
hahaha! At least it wasn’t AXE spray, then you’d smell like a 14 year old adolescent boy! I haven’t owned a bottle of cologne since my 20’s and hopefully never will again. Sorry you have to smell good! 🙂
Blech Axe products should just disappear. It destroys what little ability we have to smell as it it is.
Plus, I’m too old to fight off all those sexy ladies.
I have yet to find one lady who actually liked the stuff.
Well I’m sure I’ve smelled like a 14 year old cow at one time or another so I should just probably try to keep it all in perspective.
I tried running, feeling like Harrison Ford being chased by Tommy Lee Jones, only to protest “I don’t want any.” to which she replied “I don’t care.” In the end I gave up and surrendered. Daddy can’t outrun Mommy even when she’s was in heels, not when she got the smelly stuff on sale. Somebody’s got to pay! 😀
And we all come out smelling like roses (literally) in the end.
A rose by any other name should smell as…well… 😀
I’m ROFLMAO!!! Tee hee ….. Way to go Mommy! GRIN!! You men have NO idea what class is! A good smelling man is a SEXY man …. GOT THAT? It may rub off on you, Scott, the scent that is. You may actually end up LIKING it. Hmmmmm …. crazier things have happened you know!!! LOL ❤
Head & Shoulders smells good. When my wife is being good, I’ll even use the one with Old Spice in it for her. That should count for something.
Certainly. It should. Yet it seems your wife needs more then Head and Shoulders. Tee hee ….
I have the same fight with my husband. He refuses to use cologne, and some days, he could use it. I’m out to Target now…
There is a middle ground, you know. It’s called deodorant.
Right. If ou want to get all fancy.
BTW- Head and Shoulders is not the best stuff to smell like.
I rock Head and Shoulders.