The War On Stinkers

I'm living under a regime with a zero-tolerance approach to odour. The powers that be are determined to eradicate natural human smells via a shock and awe campaign utilising all the firepower Glade and Haze have on offer. The toilet bristles with the latest technology. The war on stinkers is in full effect.

There's two air fresheners in the toilet, one aerosol Glade with the fragrance of Clean Linen, one pump action pistol grip dispersing a fine Summer Meadow mist with each squeeze of the trigger. A Blue Loo anti-shit-scent bleach mine is strapped under the toilet seat, and a Haze deodorant block sits on top of the cistern. As you enter or exit the bathroom, a motion-sensor activated air freshener pumps Fragrant Zen covering fire in your direction. This totalitarian system will eradicate OdourCrimes before they've even happened.

Why must some people insist on the mist? This obsession with filling the air we breathe with the cloying chemical sweetness of something developed in a Glaxo Smithkline Beecham laboratory is beyond me. People have a scent. We're animals, after all. What's so much more pleasant about Glade-mixed-with-shit than just plain old shit? And how are these products tested - have the manufacturers developed fake shit-balm for the labs and focus groups? Or do they use actual feces?

Perhaps I don't understand the need to coat the air with fake Orange Blossom because I didn't grow up with laser-guided air fresheners maceing me in the face every five yards. I grew up with a Dad who proudly announced his business, loudly declaring a five-mile and 45 minute exclusion zone around the family toilet whenever he laid his paternal cables. The adjective 'Dad' still persists in my family as a means to describe a particularly heavily lingering bouquet, and a 'Dad Shit' the highest fecal accolade.