It’s finally December, which as you know, means that it is finally time for awesome characters to come out of the woodwork, like Scrooge and the Grinch stealing Christmas and all kinds of evil villains in movies, like Boss who makes you stay late on Christmas Eve and Boyfriend who is a little too into work or rival girl at work who gets promotion because she sweet talks the boss instead of being more qualified. But this time of year also brings about scents. I think we can all agree that it is the best time of year for them. Here are some of my all time favorites.
Common Scents – There is actually none of this during the Holiday Season. For instance, when was the last time you saw something advertised on a Black Friday sale that you wanted, that was actually in stock that you didn’t have to fight some crazed lunatic for that was actually in stock when you got there? Or when was the last time Wal-Mart actually opened up every check out lane they had? Or when was the last time this holiday was in July where it would be easier to travel and not get stuck in the snow somewhere? Or when was the last time you didn’t overspend just to get gifts for people you don’t like?
Burning Rubber – Ah, the smell of cars getting stuck in snow and trying to get out by continuously hitting the gas and continually not realizing that doing that will ever get you unstuck. Or the smell of snow tires getting installed on your car for $700 and then not needing them. Talked about burned…rubber.
The Scent of Failure – Take in a deep whiff of this, because it is all around you. Failure to make it on time to work because there is ice on the roads. Failure to get anyone at all the gift they wanted. Failure to have a decent party that anyone wanted to attend. Failure to get anything done at all at work. Failure for anyone to have a rational argument about saying Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Failure to come up with a post about anything that isn’t related to holidays or family or music for the whole month of December.
The Scent of Dying – The scent of leaves being crushed underneath snow, and feet and deer. The scent of the death of Thanksgiving and Halloween by the juggernaut of Christmas. The death of your savings account by sales, heating bills and party paraphernalia. The death of power in your house because of rain, wind, snow and hail. The death of hope that your favorite sports team having a chance of winning a championship. The death of your lawn, garden and trees that you worked so hard to maintain throughout the summer (you, not me.)
The Scentcership – Kids are around all the time, which means you need to censor your language. Things like, “Hey kid, there is no Santa Clause!” or “Hey kid, I got this really cheap plastic toy from the dollar store for you, because I think you have too many toys.” or “Hey kid, despite the fact that your parents say you can’t play violent video games, you actually watch even more violence on cartoons on a daily basis.”
The Scents of Other People – Because it is so cold outside, people decide to stay inside for most of December. Instead of sending your kids outside to play, they have to stay inside. Instead of going to the beach or to the forest or to your backyard, people are gathering inside. They are wearing sweaters, and Ugg Boots and mittens and not as much deoderant. So guess who we smell instead of the outdoors? Others.
Fire – Smoky the Bear spends all spring, summer and fall telling me, “Only YOU can help prevent forest fires!”, but as soon as it starts to get cold, we want fire in our fire place and fire on our scented candles that smell like Pumpkin Pie and fires on our stoves and oven. Heck, we would build a fire in our microwave, if it meant that we could speed up the process of pizza getting warm.
Bitterness – My favorite of all smells. The smell of kids not quite getting everything they want. The smell of the holidays starting to get to everyone. The smell of people getting excited for a movie and then it not meeting their expectations. The smell of a trip gone wrong, a relative annoying them, or a goal not met.
May all your wishes not quite come true. May your holidays be just shy of your expectations. May your smells be not quite what you wanted. May you scents that this post is going to make you bitter.
ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH
Bitter Nonscents Ben
May I add: The scent of failed temperature control on public transportation. Too many coats, sweaters and mitts on ibe steaming bus. Ack!
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The scent of failure on public transpo is one of my bitterly favorite scents.
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Oh, you would be so much fun to give a gift to! Here are some gift ideas for you…the bitten gingerbread cookie (not bitter, but it probably should be)
http://www.target.com/p/fred-3-piece-abc-gingerbread-cookie-cutters-silver/-/A-14756243#prodSlot=medium_1_15&tempterm=cookie+cookie+cutters
– but they are out of stock.
How about this? A Grinch sweater
http://www.target.com/OpenZoomLayer?template=scene7-image&image=Target/16657935_is&omniZoomPartNumber=16657935&swCellSpacing=10,10&swHighlightThickness=1&swBorderThickness=0&itemTitle=Grinch+Pullover+Sweater+Green&omniImageCount= –
but they are out of stock too…that just makes me so bitter…
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Or course all this stuff is out of stock. A chance for me to show my bitterness in the holiday season and something is sold out? Dang it!
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you can go to the beach in december here yesterday. it was supposed to be 70 from 12-4 pm, but they were wrong .65 was the high at 4 pm.
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Now that is just rude it only being 65 instead of 70.
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yes it was rude & it may not be 70 again until too late in april to get a new driver’s license
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It’s funny you said that because it reminded me that in fact, I do have to get a new driver’s license in April 2015.
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cause we’re twins. lol
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Separated at birth, I guess, cause we’ve never met. And if you look anything like me, well sorry.
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LOL. i have way way way more hair than you
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Most people do. I sure hope they do anyways.
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yes but people always say “you have so much hair”.i could be in the play “hair” & play all the parts
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Or you could be Hairy Potter?
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and cousin It
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The hairy one right?
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yes hairy housdini’s cousin or was it th adams family cousin
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When Hairy Met Sally?
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lol billy crystal lost his hair after Soap. i have a cousin Hairy, not hairy connick junior
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Hair today, gone tomorrow.
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LOL ..if u knew hairy, like i knew hairy ..oh i think that’s lulu
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Hairy the Prince of Wales?
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yes with hairy josh hairdryer
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That hairdryer would make me bitter.
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lol. my condo came with 2 hairdryers & i opened a box of mine with 1..i have 3 so far & i don’t use them..i wait 5 hours to dry, b/c i have long thick hair.
but i can’t find a toaster or microwave anywhere
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Perhaps you should get your hair wet more so you can dry it with one of your three dryers.
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LOL perhaps perhaps perhaps.. that’s an appropriate song for 3 hairdryers
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You know what would be a good song for 3 hairdryers…You’ve got to dry, dry, dry.
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lol..yes. mine was a real song..& now u have me singing it again…1st u have to sing..i’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair from south pacific or something …then sing dry dry dry.
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Whatever heats you hair, or floats your boat.
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BAHAHAHA the scent of failure got me. Oh yes, you mean the stench.
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When you come around my blog you will be sniffing failure everywhere, whether it it a scent or a stench.
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Okay, I should have known the bitter parts of Christmas… but I thought of bitter sweet ones like pine, oranges with little cloves stuck in them and also, vanilla from cookies in the oven.
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Pine comes from a tree and trees make me bitter. Especially pine. They are so pokey…
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The smell of burning cookies from the oven… No matter how much I try, I always burn a batch.
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Just #$%&’in Awesome!
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So you enjoy the bitter scents of the season as much as me huh?
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Friend, you are quite the wordsmith. Your puns never cease to make me laugh. But as far as scent goes, I will say that whatever winter does to make the smell of gas from my parents’ fireplace fill the air is maddening. Over Thanksgiving, I was sitting near it and didn’t realize for way too long that I was getting loopy from the gas which is very bad when you start making cruel jokes on people’s family photos on Facebook. (I had to give a lot of apologies this weekend)
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I would never apologize. You can’t get in trouble for cruel jokes when you are under the influence of gas fireplaces. And by the way, I got in trouble with my family for making cruel, yet totally funny jokes. They just need a bitter sense of humor.
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Thank you!! I’m always trying to explain to people how I was “just kidding” but then they act all offended when they set me up for the joke to begin with. If you’re going to post a picture of an ugly baby or write something lame, that’s on you. I can’t help it if somebody tee’s me up for a joke
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Seriously! If you set someone up with a joke just own it when someone destroys you. My family is just so bad at figuring that out. They think I should be nice all the time, which if they knew me, would understand that I was born with this one skill of being able to completely rail on your with heavy doses of sarcasm. Enjoy the gift!
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Tis the season to be bitter, fa la la la la, la la la laaaaaaaa!
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The season for bitterness is any season. It is all around us.
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You just made my day bitter. Is that good or bad?
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For me that is good…and bad. Good that I made someone else bitter, but bad because I felt good about it.
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Well, now I feel sort of good that you felt bad about making me bitter, but now I feel bad for feeling good about it. Bitterness is very complex.
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It is definitely a science that one develops over time. But the more you work at it, the more bitter you will be.
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You are scentsational even though you don’t like the scents of rural Idaho! Those are the same scents that you grew up with almost in your backyard.
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Not quite. The scents in my backyard was the lawn being mowed and windows being broken by my little brother. I had to travel a little to get the scent of Idaho.
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I love this post!!
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Well then make sure to tell all your bitter friends and I can get greedy and wealthy from that. Then I will be able to smell the bitter scent of money!
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Glad I’m not the only Grinch. Even other Holiday haters like to have someone to cuddle with on Christmas Eve 😉
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That’s right! Grinches of the world unite! I actually was in Orlando a couple of years ago watching Grinchmas a few days before Christmas and I felt right at home with the Grinch.
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Off topic, i know, but if you change a couple of words around on your blurb you’d have a great slogan for a beer company — “”We make better bitter.”
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Not off topic at all. I’m not above selling the slogan to any beer company! I’d be a sell out for 1/2 the price!
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I’m totally going to steal from you. This is great stuff!!!
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What an honor! No one has ever stolen from me. So will you be coming to my house to steal my video games or my computer or how does this arrangement work?
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Oh…no…no…no…just blog posts. but I’ll let you know when I stop by.
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Stolen blog posts I can take too. Nothing good to steal here.
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don’t be bitter…it’s only be a matter of time before there is.
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I’ll always be bitter. Go ahead and steal at will.
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sounds like somebody needs to get a cat. 🙂
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That is the last thing I need. I don’t need cat hair all over, I don’t need a spoiled princess that sleeps all day and needs me to let it outside in below freezing temps just so she can come back in a minute later. No, I’m not bitter about my cat growing up at all.
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Ben, I enjoyed the post, but the snowflakes are freaking. me. out.
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I’m actually glad the snowflakes are freaking you out. Is it because you have an irrational fear of snowflakes? Is it because you had a bitter experience with snow when you were a kid? Just know that you can also have freaky snowflakes on your blog too!
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Methinks that Christmas is actually your most favourite holiday in the entire world. So much to be bitter about. What a gift.
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There are definitely lots of things to be bitter about at this time of year. I could go on, but I don’t want to make you bitter. Just kidding. I do.
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You could make all these scents into a really foul smelling bitter perfume gift set and be bitter when no one buys them.
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I could call it “Ode to Bitter Failure” and it would live up to its name.
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There you go!
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I’ll be standing on the street corners saying, “Don’t get your perfume here! Nobody wants this crap! Totally get in the doghouse by getting this for your wife for Christmas!”
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You have a knack!
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One word
Elf Hat on Dog
(OK.. so four words…… deal with it)
Love and Hugs,
Junior
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That would definitely be a scent.
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but you did enjoy having time to eat a good turkey dinner even tho you had to put on snow tires to make sure you wouldn’t slide off the road, right?
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Sliding to my doom would have made the turkey not so worth it.
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LMAO I prefer Sugar Cookie candles actually…
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My daughter and wife love the old scented candles. I prefer the scent of bitterness.
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Okay. Yeah. That Wal-mart thing, where they have fifty checkout counters thing and they open three. Yeah. The ultimate holiday psychological torture. Thank you for high lighting that. Yeah. The Bank also likes to do this on Christmas Eve.
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I’m sure they put up a big front on Black Friday, but the fact of the matter is that most of the year, they only use about three registers and they could easily use at least 10.
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Psychological bitter torture. Then they have the return isle. Do we even want to talk about that?
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I don’t even want to think about the return aisle, though I assume that because I’ve been naughty all year, I probably won’t get anything.
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That’s the bitter spirit, lol.
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It’s all about that bitter.
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In all seriousness people need to get their chimneys checked before lighting fires in them, and be careful with space heaters. There have been three house fires in my tiny little town so far, and it hasn’t even gotten that cold yet. It’s going to be a bitter winter without a roof!
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I know right? Your town needs to be way more careful. I want to have a roof as well as the rest of the house, cause I’m not really into living outside.
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What about turkey farts?
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Do they smell like meat?
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If only..
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That would be awesome.
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Well unless people started smelling your ass…
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Okay gross…..
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I know and I got ya! Doing a bitter dance!
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Do your dance that you are so proud of. I will be here in the corner being bitter.
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Good then my dance worked.
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You should go on Dancing with the Bitter Stars.
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I really should!
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You would get the Bitter Crystal Ball.
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I want the bitter crystal ball! I can even dance like Carlton,
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If you can do the Carlton and not feel like a total fool for doing it, you deserve the Bitter Crystal ball.
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Well then I deserve the ball..
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You get the ball. It is at your local Party City. You just have to go pick it up.
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Can’t you do that for me. If I have to pick it up I’ll be bitter.
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Nope I prefer you bitter.
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grrrr…
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The bitter grrr… is my favorite.
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You’re welcomegrrrr
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As long as you argrrrrrree.
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grrrr…
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Grrrllll…. do you need to GRRRRiilll something?
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I grrrr
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Sounds like the holidays have got you pretty inscentsed.
Maybe you should try to find some more positive inscentives to focus on?
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It’s not just holidays. I’m bitter year round. As far as finding positive things, I find it much more fun to find the bitter things…
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Well, I admire your commitment to being rescentful.
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I do have one quality. I commit to being rescentful.
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There is a stench about it all! Just when you think you’ve seen every imaginable commercialization out pops another!
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Yep, they pop out like a weasel! Some so inscentsitive.
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Love the clever plays on “scents” – common scents, Bitter Nonscents Ben, etc. You are so punny. Just don’t go ruining the “innoscents” of children with all that talk about Santa! 😉
Also, favorite lines: “They are wearing sweaters, and Ugg Boots and mittens and not as much deodorant. So guess who we smell instead of the outdoors? Others.” Bahahaha!
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I perfected the art of puns in college with my best friend. We would go to girls apartments, tell them a few puns then left. It is probably why I didn’t date much in college.
I think a lot of people think about the candle smells or turkey smells, but there are so many others (mostly not good) that we don’t think of. Just trying to point some out. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Human Interest.
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