There have been lots of times when I was smacked right in the olfactory senses with the smell of old people. Sometimes it was relatives, but usually not.
When I was young I spent 4 years delivering newspapers here in this sleepy little town of Auburn, and the route I had was in a fairly well-established part of town. I didn't have many younger customers. I figure there were either not many young families in that area or just that only the older citizens liked subscribing to newspapers. The only times I ever actually went into people's houses were during the times I went door-to-door collecting for their monthly subscription bills. I usually waited outside the front door while they went to find their money, but occasionally a customer would invite me in during the rainy or cold times while they got their payment together. I was always very polite and stood still on the rug near the door like people are supposed to do. I don't think I ever noticed anything really odd about any of them. Well, except for one woman that had tall stacks of newspapers filling her entire living room. There were so many that she had to navigate her way through carefully groomed pathways. But that's another story.
Some people's houses had a smell. It wasn't a bad smell, but it was a pervasive smell. I can't quite put my finger on what it smelled like. I just call it Old People Smell. I don't know if it's from the age of their furnishings or carpets, the degree of housekeeping that they kept up, or the people themselves. Sometimes it's seemed to be directly related to mothballs. I hate mothballs. Maybe the Old People Smell I keep recalling is nothing more than a person's trust in that age-old vermin remedy (probably passed down by apothecaries in the days of yore). Maybe in addition to repelling moths, those stinky, disgusting orbs of mystery are also used to repel young people? If the sense of smell in old people has declined as much as their eyesight or hearing has, maybe they figure the odor of mothballs is worthwhile to endure if it can be depended on to keep young people away from them.
Let's say it's the people themselves that develop a smell. Nobody ever told me that it would happen. Nobody ever sat me down and said, "You know, one day in your future you are going to start to rot. People around you will probably notice but not say anything. There's nothing you can do about it so I'm not sure why I'm even telling you this."
How do you know when it hits? Does it happen slowly or is it a sudden thing? Does it eventually happen to everybody?
Sue's youngest son, Keith, still maintains a bedroom here. He splits his time among our house and others, but basically he is here often. His room has a smell. It smells alien to me. Odd somehow. I figured it's because he keeps it closed tightly most of the time. Recently, her next older son, Dane, moved back home. Now I notice a smell in that room when I go in there that never used to be there. My shirts still hang in that closet, and when I get one out and put it on I smell it on me then.
Could it be that I'm smelling a NON Old People Smell?
Dane was talking to his mom the other day. He told her that when he visited his fiance' Chelsea she said something to him like, "You smell like your mom's house".
Could it be? I have Old People Smell? We have Old People Smell? Why the hell didn't anyone tell us?
Hmm. Maybe when people say that someone has 'aged like a fine wine' they're actually referring to the degree of fermentation that is emanating from their bodies.
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