Posse!  It’s Not You.  It’s me.  And it’s really not either of us – it’s perfume.  Have you ever made a Bad Perfume Decision?  I just did – and I Blame Chemistry (not body, per se –  more Better Living Through) .

Let’s back up a bit.  So, two weeks ago I spent 5 or so days in enforced physical restraint and isolation down at my sister’s in KY; originally the plan was for us to trailer my bike down, hang out there for a few days, then I would ride back to my house.  Sounds like a lovely interlude, right?

Newp.

A seasonal allergic reaction ripped through a verrry tender part of me, rendering it impossible for me to sit, stand… pretty much anything other than laying on my side… for 5 days.  I was in a haze of painkillers and prednisone, trying not to just expire in a puddle of misery.  No perfume at all because I could barely walk the 10 feet to the bathroom to shower and yeah… it was a mess.

No riding through the KY hills in the late Summer breeze.  Instead I lay prone in the backseat whilst my family drove my busted ass back to IL.  My poor bike never got off the trailer.

A biopsy* and a few swabs later, some meds and I’m feeling a bit less like Walking Dead…. so I thought ‘hey!  I’ll put on some perfume’.  Yeah.  No.  Apparently the meds I’m on have altered my sniffer.  UPDATE:  *Biopsy shows some odd dermal issues but no Big C, which is wonderful.  HOWEVAH!!!!  I have a vicious UTI which is raging through my system like a wildfire and the infection has now lodged in that ‘weakest point’ (usually some post-surgical site.  Mine is my left shoulder).  I dunno what made me think I could’ve been a Marine combat officer – I am sick as a snake, barely able to lift my left arm and would sell a portion of my soul to Satan to get rid of this pain.  Yeah.  I would’ve gotten through OCS just fiiiiine 😉

Anyhoo – all the meds, etc – it really has messed with my sniffer.  I’m definitely not anosmic – it’s just that everything is topsy-turvy.

For example: would’ve thought Arpege (ARPEGE~  do you know how much I love Arpege???) could render me nauseated, null and void!  Omg.  I spritzed a bit onto my wrists and fell back as if I’d sprayed a zombie into existence!  Or… maybe Lemon Pledge?  Napalm?  Whatever that smell is, it isn’t Arpege.

And I cannot get it off – or else I cannot get it out of my nose.  Instant headache. Nausea.  Confusion.  Showered, changed my clothes… it’s still there!

But!  LeLabo Rose 31, which has always been my LeLabo ‘meh’, is now the most glorious thing I’ve ever smelled!  It’s just weird.

So here’s the question:  has this ever happened to you – especially has it happened with a beloved, oft-worn scent?  And what happens when you simply cannot get it out of your psyche?  I thought about amping the lemon but if that goes bad I’ll have to boil both of my wrists and that seems a bit extreme….. do you apply something atop it?  Just power through?  Sacrifice a goat to the perfume gods to get it the hell off you?  Cry?

And… for anyone who has gone through a UTI, if I’ve ever been dismissive of it, my abject apologies.  Until now, I’ve been a UTI virgin.  I managed my pop’s but obviously in the abstract – and UTIs in the extreme elderly manifest differently, it seems.  Luckily I’ve had none of the seizures or other weird effects (my pop would go from normal behavior into a coma-like state, in about 90 seconds).   I will tell you this:  I have never peed this much in my entire life!  My Yeti cup full of water is my New Best Friend, along with the unsweetened cranberry concentrate.  March has me on Kefir to stave off the antibiotic-induced ‘other’ infection 😉  – and other than Activia and a scrambled egg, that’s about all I can get down the hatch.  At this point I fully expect to have the skin of an 18month old baby (or Iman) by Wednesday.  It’s only fair, right?  I should get something out of this drama?  Oh, yeah.  Oooh-rah, tough gal.

my new best friend – yeti.com

I was going to try wearing Divine by Divine today but I’m terrified!  Then again, both Beloved and the original Karl Lagerfeld(both of which share a lot of the notes and style of Divine) are humming along just fine.   Maybe it’s just aldehydic scents – No 5, She Who Must Be Obeyed, has been brought low by this!  That’s like felling Godzilla with a BB gun!

stolen: luckyscent.com

Talk to me.  Co-miserate with my sorry, whiny pee pants self.  I will pull a couple of names for some samples – I know I’m behind but I’m so puny right now that I’m going up for the Medal of Honor, just for getting this post out!  What a punk!  Oooh-rah! indeed.