“I’m sorry but is that you?” asked the middle aged woman. She had stopped me at the edge of the spice isle.
“Huh?”
Sometimes I have all the eloquence of a pop-rock. What can I say, she caught me off guard.
“I smelled the same thing when you walked by before, is it you?” This time her nose remained in the air as if she’s trying to drown her senses with the delicious scent of apple pie, peaches and brown sugar.
I had no beans in the last hour so I knew I was safe on that point.
My mind instant rewinds to ten minutes earlier. I was at the beginning of my mission. I needed some kind of caffeinated liquid sugary jolt of goodness and a box of raisins. I had a paper to write and no time to waste.
And I really needed some raisins.
Keeping true to form I had waited until the last minute to do my Chaucer research paper. I constantly wrote and rewrote the thing in my head for the last two months but I can’t turn in scraps of mind-paper. I had to write the sucker down… with extreme quickness.
I slow forward through my memory. A quick walk past the tiny pseudo-Starbucks on my right. I avoid the tasty grapes and fresh-ish tomatoes. I make it into the mini-seasonal section of isles on the left. That’s when I’m hit with a strong scent of men’s cologne. It was overwhelming but not annoyingly overwhelming. I have to know where scents come from. Probably some left over caveman instinct. I have to know so that I can either avoid it in the future or find it when necessary.
After pausing to gauge the people around me I’m pretty sure that no one in my immediate vicinity is wearing said cologne. That’s when I see a shelf full of Axe.
I guess that some fool doused himself with the stuff and ran. Probably hoping to collect women in his wake like a piped piper of early evening Super Target. But that doesn’t concern me. I’m on a mission. My agenda must be fulfilled.
I jump back into live mode.
“Oh, that’s not me. I did smell it earlier though.” I said with my patented stock friendly grin.
“Ah.” she replies.
“Yeah…but um…thanks?” I say sheepishly.
She regarded me with a disappointed glance and returned to her shopping.
As I walk to the checkout counter a thought hits me.
‘Was that old lady hitting on me? If I had said ‘yes’ and played all the cards given to me at birth…could I have had age-adjusted-for the-situation Mrs Robinson sex?’
The thought of grey hairs in wrong places disturbs me beyond the telling of it. I’m old but not that old.
Was this a mistake on Axe‘s part? Did they accidentally mix up a vat of Love Potion Number 55?
It’s best I don’t dwell, too long, on such things.
I purchase my items and return to my agenda relatively unscathed.
