If not for the pigs, Finn

This just in. I think I am a smell snob. Granted everyone likes it when things smell good, and no one enjoys unpleasant odors, but I've realized that I often associate smells with quality and/or status. Particularly when it comes to soap. If an establishment has nasty-smelling restroom soap, or if a house I'm visiting boasts a pump bottle full of gold-colored Dial, I won't be impressed.

The effect of a yummy-scented soap is powerful, almost distractingly so. While at dinner last week at a delightful, old Hollywood themed establishment, I excused myself to use the restroom (signs reading "Guys" and "Dolls" on either door) and was surprised by how delicious the soap smelled. I must have spent a full minute standing there in front of the sink smelling my hands. Even after re-joining the group, I kept smelling, even commenting to a few of them, "This soap smells amazing." Since I'm sure they all cared. Tremendously.

A few of my favorites: Sweet Water by Method (currently featured in my good friend K's sister's house, a common place for our gatherings on Cleveland's west side. The house is impeccably decorated, and the soap fits right in), Japanese Cherry Blossom by Bath and Body Works (this is what M has at his house, and I like it so much he bought me some last week), Dream by Gap (delish even in its perfume form, this soap was featured for years in my aunt J's house, and if you know my aunt J, or her house, you'd know she is the epitome of style and class).

This is why I have a hard time with the soap in the restrooms at my office. It smells like nothing. Which I suppose is better than smelling bad, but still, why not spend the extra few cents to put some fragrance into the sterile, white foam? It does nothing for me to walk back to my desk with hands smelling so non-descript that the only thing I can think to compare the scent to is cooking oil. And it's not as if this is some sort of recent cost initiative, because the soap has been the same since I started. Oh well. I suppose, R, if this is the only thing I don't like about my job, my life is looking pretty good.