Grass Cleaners and Deodorized Eggs

I began to wonder, the other night, if people are now cleaning their grass with lemon-scented ammonia. 

It was a clear, moonlit eve and my husband had just purchased a used lawnmower from a resident of an impeccably lovely home, lawn freshly tended.*  As my husband re-entered the car after loading the lawnmower in the back, I smelled a pungent chemical, lemony smell.  Preparing to stick my nose out the window for the entire ride home, I exclaimed to my husband, "You've got the smell of a cleaner all over you!"  To which he replied, "It's not me -- that smell was all over, outside.  It still is."

It was a difficult call.  My sense of smell, initially strong, was now somewhat masked by the chemical.  Perhaps the air outside really did sting of the strange scent.  For a few moments as we drove out of the neighborhood, the peculiar scent seemed to be "out there."  How very odd.

"Oh," I lamented, "where can I find air that smells of air?"

As we drove further, the chemical lemony smell seemed to emanate from the back of the car.  I thought about the grass-catcher on the mower, and my wheels started turning.  What, exactly, was on that mower?

Having been so long away from lawn treatments, I no longer know what the scent of one would be -- except for the most rudimentary fertilizers.  When we returned home, however, the hair of another family member [our little girl] who'd been sitting in the back passenger seat now smelled of the lemony chemical.

Then, yesterday, when I was preparing to make a three-egg omelet, I opened the plastic egg carton and was greeted by that synthetic "air-freshener" smell.  To my surprise, this time the chemical smell had nearly escaped the plastic carton.  It was actually on the eggs.  "Oh," I thought, "now they have 'deodorized eggs'?"  

For what it was worth, I rinsed the pretty brown "farm-fresh," "cage-free," "omega-3" eggs in cool tap water from our well.  I then rubbed them with paper towels (these, fortunately, were scent-free).  Some of the scent diminished.  We did eat them.  

But it all causes one to wonder.

While scrambling the perfumed eggs, I had tried to navigate my footwork with some grace and charm as a migraine headache came out of hiding.  The previous day, I'd walked my children into the children's section of a library.  I'd backed right out again.  An acerbic chemical scent was present in the air.  My nose turned red, and the redness began to spread to my chin and face.  Then came the hives on my arms -- the usual routine when there's an air freshener and/or strong cleaning products have been used in a room.

All of which left me feeling an externally invisible but internally experienced difficulty with balance and walking yesterday.  These types of recovery days involve a kind of "thinking about walking" on my part in order to make walking happen properly.  It all feels remarkably like when I was put on codeine after an operation to mask the pain:  a frankly drugged feeling in which all planned physical impulses feel like sludge and words almost slur. 

So, thinking hard about walking from the table to the stove and back again, I prepared our fragranced eggs. 

There's no use crying about it.  Sometimes, I'd just rather laugh.  There will be no perfection on this earth while I write this blog and advocate for air purification in every venue.  Of course I know this.  And I even accept it.  

There will be those days when I feel as though I'm walking on a rocking ship, when my brain pounds nearly out of my skull, when my face is outlined in choleric red and hives sprout in patches . . .

Until, that is, the law banishes synthetic air fresheners, synthetically scented paraffin candles, toxins in synthetic laundry and cleaning products, and lawn chemicals -- among a multitude of other things.

Just one more reminder from one more little voice on the planet. 

Aside from that, I wish you "Cheers!"

~ Carolyn

*[Note of 9/10/15:  This strange scent experience of our family of four took place in upper Northwest NJ, in Sussex County.]