What is this I'm smelling in the toilet?

"A rose by any other name will smell as sweet," Shakespeare says. Why don't I ever smell things like roses? I smell only strange things. Or rather, only strange smells affect me.

I was in the toilet today, and somebody had sprayed Glades Country Garden (It's air freshner, dah-ling!) all over. The smell transported me back into my early years with the company, back to the days when going to the office meant going to a whole-day party with friends, and work was fun.

I must have spent quite a fair bit of time in the loo then, to have remembered the smell of Glades Air Freshner, Country Garden flavour. Funny how the most synthetic and sickening of smells can even be associated with good memories.

I have another anecdote about strange smells....

I discovered an old bottle of face cleanser the other day. (Don't ask me where. I hoard all sorts of things, including dust and lizards. Can?!)

Opening it up, the smell hit me and an image flashed in my mind's eye - a blue bathroom, with freezing cold bathroom tiles, a bath-tub, in Bristol England. The year was, errr, 2002 I think, and the flat was a friend's. And the reason why I had to shuffle the floor mat all over the bathroom floor, from sink to the door, was because I wasn't allowed to switch on the radiator even though it was freaking cold! (I still love you anyway sweetie!)

I was visiting friends as well as holidaying in UK, and obviously, very excited to be spending time with this particular friend, even though I was feeling cold all the time I was visiting. The memories associated with this strange smell were both sweet, and funny. (Actually, they're more funny than anything else.) Car rides in rain, walks in rain, walking all over the place in the rain, shopping in the rain, fun in the rain. clubbing and getting sloshed, in the rain as well. As you noticed, the rain was a large part of my memories in UK. Oh, and on one of those days, a memory of a paper thin layer of ice that melted within half an hour.

Ooohhh.... Happy happy days....

Strange (bad?) smells equals good memories?! That's just really weird.