On Stink Bugs and Buttered Toast

       I was in the middle of a twelve day stretch. Sprinting down the hall, carrying copies of a chart for the ambulance crew, I realized I was smelling buttered toast. It was hours after breakfast. “Strange,” I thought, “but oh well.” We saw our patient off to the ER.

       Finally at the end of my shift, I sat down to chart. I realized I had worked up a sweat and still felt a little damp. It hit me again: the smell of buttered toast. It wasn’t the fresh, yummy kind of toast; it was the smell of older, reheated, smeared with margarine kind of toast.

       For a moment I had a dreadful thought that it was some sort of menopause thing. Even though I’m as old as the Super Bowl, I still am too young for menopause. I dared to sniff my armpit. No, it wasn’t there. Did a resident with buttered fingers touch me when I helped transfer him or her? I didn’t know. My only solution was to shower as soon as I got home.

       How does this relate to stink bugs?

       About a month ago, at the in-laws, we saw a large beetle on the ceiling. It looked like one of the stink bug family. They’ve been an oddity I started noticing over the last ten years or so. The ones I’ve seen have a proboscis, tiny head and heavily armored legs. They move slowly, mechanically.

       [Once, years ago, I watched one such bug trapped in a spider web. The spider, maybe 1/20 its size, was biting the behemoth’s armored leg and trying to spin more web around it. Like a wildebeest being slowly killed by inexperienced lions, its sheer strength was exactly what was causing it to suffer. The scene wasn’t going to end well, but I had neither the heart to watch nor the oomph to end the creature’s misery. I’m not proud to say that I turned away.]

       As we looked at the large beetle invading our dinner party, I said we should scoop it up and put it outside because I thought it was a stink bug. Well, my niece’s boyfriend smushed it.

       In a few seconds, we were enveloped in a green, wet smelling odor. We laughed because there was nothing else to do.

       That week, I ran out of conditioner at the wrong time of the paycheck. I stopped off at the store and picked up some 88¢ or 99¢ conditioner. It would have to do. One was labeled as freesia scented. I like the smell of freesia; why not? I’d get paid in a few days anyway.

       In the shower, I shampooed and conditioned.

       Oh, no.

       Why didn’t I test smell the conditioner before I bought it?

       Instantly I was back at the in-laws’, the memory of stink bug and unspoken “I told you so’s” making me laugh. Only I didn’t laugh. I was trying to not gag in the shower.

       Payday came and I bought a different conditioner, one more expensive (and hopefully better quality) per ounce. Then came that crazy, busy day at work when I first smelled the buttered toast.

       Always ready to play detective, the next day when I showered, I sniffed the new conditioner. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. I shampooed and conditioned as usual. By the end of the day, I was smelling buttered toast again.

       I hadn’t eaten differently, except maybe a lot more fast food in what turned into a 60 hour work week. I hadn’t worn perfume. It was the same laundry detergent.

       The next day, I used the stink bug– I mean freesia– conditioner. No buttered toast scent taunted me. The next day, I used the other conditioner. It had done that which for which I had bought it: increased the volume to my hair. But I smelled buttered toast.

       My experiment indicated that the conditioner was the cause. Happily, I wasn’t experiencing olfactory hallucinations after all.

       I asked my husband and he said he didn’t notice it, even when he smelled my hair. Since I don’t normally have people come that close to smell my hair, I decided to ditch the freesia and go with the buttered toast.

       At least until my next shopping trip, that is. Maybe I can find a conditioner that smells like pizza.