The Nose

My companion and I trudge, searching for the escalator to take us up and out of the huge mall. Finally, we see it. Just beyond the perfume counters lies the single bottom step upon which we only need to set our feet and ride. However, our exhaustion from three miles of furniture store hiking – the huffing and puffing – is construed as enthusiasm for the swirl of scents wafting around us. Hearing our deep breaths, two heads pop up from behind the counters. Their bright faces read, “What? They’re showing interest?” and their eyes narrow.

Too weak to run away, we are descended upon by the clerks who fight like lions over two lost zebras. They argue, compete, and try to pull us in two different directions. Eventually, the woman abdicates and the young man takes us on a tour around his half of the semi circle. We don’t care which way we go, it’s the same distance to the escalator either way, or so we thought.

The predator male begins his interpretive dance – a mating dance, it would seem. In retrospect, it was a war dance. He sprays something upward, flaps air currents into our faces, and stalks our expressions. I cough. My companion sneezes. The guy spritzes a paper card and waves it under our noses. We sidestep. He spins, grabs another bottle and squirts. I gag, back up, and trample a woman who, as I watch, has only used me for a flawless pick and roll while she darts to freedom. The young male is unfazed as my companion and I struggle for breath. Actually, I suspect he’s excited by it, because a fog rolls in. Competing stenches suddenly engulf us and there, whirling, spritzing, flapping, and waving, is the faintest outline of our attacker.

We crabwalk, shuffle, stop, drop and roll, execute the worm, and believe we’ve finally managed to run the smog gauntlet when out of the mists steps the female of the species. She’s braved his territory, invaded his hunting ground, and she’s wielding another bottle. Hell, she’s pulling them out of her pants pockets, her pink smock – is that a tote? I lose count around thirty super expensive, “unique” and “distinct” scents, and start to lose consciousness when the guy reappears with new quantities tantamount to Windex bottles and a five gallon bucket.

“Go! You’re my only hope!” I gasp and push my companion toward the escalator, our only escape from the low-lying toxic cloud. Snot drips and my eyes burn from the last attack of Eau de Ghost Pepper just as I succumb to the cedar-lime-herb-smoke-clean-classic-floral notes now crescendoed to a cacophony so noxious, I suspect my ears are bleeding.

Pressed to the filthy mall floor by all this exquisite luxury, I manage to wrangle my car key from my pants pocket and hold it out like a dull blade. I whip the fob’s dangling beads at the blobs in front of me until I hear gushing apologies and claims that they’re only trying to help as unseen hands drag me up to stand. I know it’s “the clerks” because they continue to relay the obscene prices and blistering 2% off sale while spinning me this way and that. Finally, I’m released back into the wild.

Blind, disoriented, and groping the air in front of me, I have only my fancy car key with which to brave the world. I stagger, struggling to breathe, but manage a choking sort of maniacal chuckle as I’ve finally figured out the game. Fob in hand, I grab the first ass I can find and pin a tail on that donkey. Only half satiated, I go hunting for the other one. I’m pretty sure I’ll know him by his scent.