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Ah, smell. Note how even the word "smell" alone without adjectives to convey its pleasantness, automatically makes you crinkle your nose as if a close talker named Earl with coffee breath had just told you a lengthy tale of how the bagel shop was closing down. You don't care about the bagel shop, in fact, from that day forward, you cringe at the thought of a bagel because it reminds you of Earl and his coffee breath. Funny how these little parts of our brains associated with scent are also fueled by memories and the emotions surrounding them. That is the reason why you may like the scent of vanilla-fresh-baked-buttery-ex tra-pounds-just-from-smelling- it candles and your friend three doors down prefers a woodsy, fresh scent; it all has to do with the emotions those particular smells unlock for each of you. You never know, your neighbor may have had a secret love affair with a lumberjack.

I grew up in Montana and have since moved elsewhere. I have found myself attracted to the scents that remind me of growing up and I alternate through the seasons since each one reminds me of its surrounding smells-lilacs in spring, lavenders in summer, harvest scents in autumn and the balsam firs in winter. There was a scent I fell in love with last year that smells like a greenhouse (by now, any connoisseur of candles knows which brand I speak of), that smell just made my apartment feel alive, coming out of the cold winter. I was thoroughly invigorated.

Oddly enough, there are no such things as "positive" scents because the scent and the emotions associated with are what determine its pleasantness factor. Skunks and even cow-poo from a distance can invoke memories of growing up on the farm in the clean air but I wouldn't want my house to smell like that and my daughter thinks I'm nutty every time we drive past the road kill and it sweeps me into a state of nostalgia. So, I don't think Yankee will be putting out its "Fresh Pastures" jar anytime soon, but I still like it.

Apparently, studies by people who study these things (I hope they're getting paid well, because who has the time?) have shown that women have a heightened sense of smell-"Who left their socks on the bathroom floor?" " But, Mom, we're in the car."-and could explain why the phenomenon of aromatherapy has been so successful. We apparently like aromas (see how that word sounds like it smells good?) and therapy, and thus have generously donated billions of our hard-earned (why we need the smelltherapy in the first

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