Something stinks

How bad do our homes REALLY smell?

Have you noticed all the products advertised on commercials to improve the smell of our homes? EVERY OTHER ad is some spray or candle or carpet cleaner to make our houses smell better. It makes me wonder.... how bad do we really smell? And how self-concious are we that we would spend billions of dollars as a country to make our house smell like a rain forest or freshly baked cookies? What a gip, to come home, breathe in the smell of vanilla, sugar and chocolate chips only to find out that somebody lit a match instead of baked cookies. Supposedly our bathrooms smell, our basements smell, our carpets smell. The garbage smells. Baby's diapers smell. The dog smells. The cat box smells.

There is Oust. Lysol. Febreeze. Glade candles. Glade aerosol sprays. Glade plug in air fresheners. Glade plug-in air fresheners with fans and extra outlets.

There are 556 scents at Yankee Candle in every shape, size, color and style. They have Yankee Candle scented CAR air fresheners. Apparently, even though no one actually lives in the car, it still stinks.

An entire aisle is dedicated to this at the grocery store. How bad IS this situation? And if it does smell that bad, shouldn't we be cleaning, not lighting a candle in every room? Next thing you know, they will have odor alarms to hang next to our smoke alarms. It will automatically release a pleasant scent if the meter reading gets too foul. Crap, I should be marketing that myself! But like the fire alarm getting set off by burnt toast, the odor alarm might be set off by a stray burp, or a gym bag full of sweaty clothes. Perhaps that would be a little too much.

I wonder if we really do smell that bad.... or if someone, in a boardroom in some corporate skyscraper is laughing his ass off at our pathetic worries and lighting a match to his favorite scent: insecurity.