Important pre-post note: In this entry title the word "Smells" is not intended as the intransitive verb but, rather, a noun. That is to say this post is about smells one encounters in New York, not a statement that New York is smelly. Though it is.
As anyone who lives in New York knows, the city is host to many different smells. Most of these smells are bad: garbage on the side of the road on trash day, the weird urine smell that whooshes out of sidewalk grates when a subway goes by, the greasy scent wafting from the vents of each of the eight million restaurants. Yes, these bad smells do plague the city, but they are not the problem. When you see one of these smells coming (yes, you can see smells in NYC, that's the way it works) you just stop breathing for a few minutes until the danger has passed. What concerns me are the GOOD smells. By good smells I don't mean the smell of hot nuts from the hot nut vendor. I mean the scariest smells of all: the UNIDENTIFIABLE good smells.
Sometimes I'll be walking along the city street and my nose will be hit with the refreshing scent of the ocean breeze. Ahhh, I'll think, inhaling the salty tang of the sea deeply into my nostrils. Or I'll be in the subway and notice the lilac tang of fresh linen, and I'll close my eyes for a moment and breath it in, mentally escaping for a moment from the crowded underground passage. Then my eyes will pop open, I'll clasp my hand over my nose. Because I'll realize there is no ocean breeze anywhere in smelling distance. There is definitely no fresh linen in the subway. What I am actually smelling is an unknown combination of BAD smells, grease and urine and garbage and lord knows what else. Somehow these bad smells have combined together to masquerade as a good smell, these evil offals have TRICKED me into smelling them.
Oh, beware the unidentifiable good smell in New York City. Because if you can’t immediately identify it, you don’t want to be smelling it.
