Smells

I hope it is completely normal that I associate certain smells with certain events of my life and video games. I don’t know the exact nature of the association, but for me, each smell is connected to some sort of illness.

For example, I associate the smell of spaghetti with Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam. The story behind this is that I was struck with a bad case of the flu some years back. My only option (besides rain-dancing with bears [school, whatever]) was to stay at home and play video games. It just so happened that I had rented Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam, and I proceeded to play it. For dinner that night I had spaghetti warmed up from a small container, and it was sitting right next to me as I vicariously jammed downhill. The smell must have been completely trapped in my sinuses, as the smell of spaghetti lingered for days and days before my flu subsided. From that point forward, whenever I eat spaghetti, I think of said game, and whenever I play said game, I smell spaghetti.

Another fine example is Animal Crossing with fruity cough drops. While this may be a bizarre connection, I rationalize that the things we most remember are the traumatic things that have happened to us. I mean, wouldn’t you remember if you were mauled by a bear at five years old? Either that, or you would totally repress it, but odds are you’d be scarred in some sort of way that you’d remember it. Um…..

Anyways, Animal Crossing.

In the Christmas in which I recieved Animal Crossing (2005, I do believe), I had a terrible cold. I mean terrible in something like sealing my nose shut with rubber cement, walking around with onions glued to my cheeks, and being drugged with a quarter of a dosage of anesthesia for a healthy human male. After receiving the game, I promptly stuck the disc in the Gamecube, and started incessantly playing. My mother, being the loving mother she is, recommended cough drops to me, and I, in a sinus-driven daze, took them. Again, my sinuses trapped them, endlessly assaulting my olfactory sense. Think of it as a small puppy that follows you along your merry way down the road. It’s cute and adorable for a while, but after said while, you’d start to get annoyed, and after a long while, there would be nothing you would love to do more than to drop-kick it to The Land of Oz. The same principle applies to fruity cough drops and sinuses: The fruity smell is nice and all, but after a while it’s all you smell, and you go crazy. After my cold cleared up, I now associate that game with the smell of fruity cough drops.

What makes smell connected to memories? Why is it only sicknesses? Maybe I can make my own associations. The next time I get the flu or some other sinus-clogging ailment, I’ll fill the room with Vanilla Tropic air fresheners, and play Rock Band nonstop. I’ll see if I can’t make my own.