I am blogging for #SmellyToSmiley activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ambi Pur
Schools reopened this week after a two-month long summer break. My son, who spends his vacations with his grandparents, returned home last week with them – the maternal grandparents this time. Whenever the grandparents (either set) are in the house, Mr. R and I are responsible citizens of the world, and rather decent in our manners and way of living. Which is all very good, until the school closes and the son is whisked off.
Then we turn into our alter egos.
Pic Courtesy: learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org
Now you can probably imagine how the last two months were for us. You know how, as a teenager, you had a chair on which you threw your unwashed clothes? No, we did not have one of those notorious laundry chairs. We were a step above that – we had a notorious laundry couch! Along with that, we were always ordering junk food, and if you sat down somewhere only to find something poking you where it shouldn’t, you’ll find it’s a dried up leg bone from the tandoori chicken we ordered three weeks ago! Always lazing about, because, hey! That’s the life! Occasionally, we did use our kitchen, mostly out of pity - the shelves looked unused and unwanted. When you go to a restaurant, or even your neighbourhood McDonald’s, you find that the smell of food is so enticing, so inviting, that you’d rush into the kitchen, cos you didn’t wanna wait anymore (you don’t of course, but you want to). When you cook at home – what the hell goes wrong!? The same aroma, the richness of spices and ghee or just plain potatoes frying in overused oil, turns to a sickness that haunts the very depths of your olfactory senses!
It’s during these times that when someone rings the doorbell - it might just be the security guard informing you of a water shortage - that you hide every offensive item in sight, lock the kitchen, feed your goldfish the key, throw the empty pizza boxes on the couch out the window with the least concern about it falling on someone’s head and open the door a narrow crack to say, “Hi!”
But I am exaggerating, obviously. We just ignore the doorbell…
Couch potatoes cannot be troubled with such sudden anxiety attacks. Good sense prevailed momentarily and we decided to fix the house, throw out the garbage more responsibly, and do something about the smell that assaulted us every time we stepped into the house.A long-time collector of scented candles, I decided to light one in all the corners of the house. But they were rather old and did absolutely nothing. We decided to fall back on the trustworthy agarbattis, but they also did little to help. Eventually we made a trip to the local grocery store and brought all kinds of room fresheners!
Finally we had a winner! Of all that we had used, Ambi Pur Effects had the best effect, redundant pun unintended! Then it did not matter if the security guard came, the courier guy or the pizza guy came, or even the Queen dropped by - we were ready! With only a day left for our son to return, we threw every last pizza box out, we removed the last oil stain, and the house smelled wonderful like something a new born baby dreamed of!After all, our son must never know about his parents’ alter egos.
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