Inexpensive Splash-On Aftershaves—Take Me Away...

This post is part of ThinkKit by SmallBox.

January  5, 2016 prompt: “Scratch & Sniff.  Scents have the power to take us all kinds of places. What smell takes you somewhere else? Where'd you go?”

Inexpensive Splash-On Aftershaves—Take Me Away...

I may be biased, but I do not like the designer colognes that men wear these days.  Two of my favorite scents are inexpensive splash-on aftershaves I remember falling in love with during my childhood and teenage years.

Daddy always wore the original Old Spice when I was growing up. He was military and you could buy  it cheap in the Base Exchange.  Every Christmas he would request Old Spice, black socks, and a new trifold wallet. The newer flavors of Old Spice, even the “Classic”  are not the same. They do not take me anywhere, and in fact, they are as offensive as most designer colognes. 

But every once in a while,  an old Veteran will come onto my Ward at the VA Hospital I work in and I’ll get a rare sniff of the original Old Spice. When that happens, I am transported to my Childhood Christmases—Mama baking pies, my Sister and I excitedly waking up on Christmas morning just minutes after Santa’s Elves, AKA Mama and Daddy, had assembled the last toy and barely fell into the bed, and Daddy peeling oranges the size of grapefruits. 
When I smell  the original Old Spice, I climb up in Daddy’s  lap and rest my head on his chest, and as he wraps his arms around me I am safe.

The other inexpensive splash-on aftershave is Brut. When I smell Brut I go back to my High School Locker, my Junior year, and it is not safe. It is sexy.

I have a very common name. When I was a Junior in High School, there was a girl in the Senior class with the same name.  I think she was always in trouble. Every morning I was called to the Principals Office. Every morning I would walk in and they would tell me I was the wrong girl. I would agree. I was kind of a goody-two shoes (not really, but in comparison  to her they thought I was a saint).  For weeks this occurred. For weeks they would tell me not to come back. For weeks I would relay the message to the Homeroom Teacher. For weeks he would send me to the Office anyway, not believing me.  It took several weeks, but the Homeroom Teacher and the Office finally got on the same sheet of music (he was the Band Director and his homeroom was composed of the Band Members—I didn’t make the cut my Senior year and I’m sure it was because he really thought I was a trouble maker—but it was all good, I made the Vocal Ensemble I desperately wanted ).

Being mistaken for the trouble girl wasn’t all bad though—because they thought I was her, my locker was in the Senior Section during my Junior year. Right next to the Basketball Player I had a crush on.  I swooned every time he came to the locker after gym or basketball practice because,  not only was he handsome—he smelled super sexy. He wore Brut. To this day, if I smell Brut, I smile,  look around for him, and grow very, very warm.