What Smells?

I'm currently testing this hypothesis: "The older girls get, the smellier they become."

Forget poopy diapers and spit up. Forget dried, mashed yams on their sweet little faces. You are from yesteryear. And you are nothing a little Lysol and soap can't fix.

Instead, let's take some very cherry shower gel, vanilla body lotion, freesia body splash, strawberry lip gloss, apple shampoo, pear conditioner, fresh ocean deodorant and combine it with hair gel, hair straightener, hair spray and hair serum. Apply to one tall, but tiny 14 year-old. Needless to say, I cope with this on a daily basis by staying a wee bit at a distance.

I have a dilemma when there's a spend-the-night party here, though, because we now have 7 or 8 other girls with similar combinations. Instead of just vanilla body lotion, we could also have cucumber melon, plumeria or juniper breeze. Instead of a simple pear splash, we might also have warm vanilla, black raspberry, or brown sugar. Multiple that by 7 (or 8). And then mutiply again by all the shampoos, lotions, hair tonics, splashes and conditioners one teenage girl has on her self at one time. It's an equation beyond my mathematical abilities but will help you see why a gas mask would be a good Christmas present for me. Currently I handle the situation by taking a deep breath, running into the playroom and throwing sodas and popcorn at them before I turn blue and pass out.

Thank you Bath and Body Works, at least I always know where she is. Even if we are in the middle of a crowded store weeks before Christmas and I've lost sight of her, I can tell she's close by. And although I can't get real close to her anymore, no boy will either. And, while I used to think you were an instrument of Satan, I'm starting to wonder if an enterprising mother created you in her kitchen just in time to unleash it on her adolescent child.