Monday, September 8, 2008

Mashed potatoes


"Daddy, you smell."

"I smell?"

"You smell like mashed potatoes."

"Mashed potatoes?" I sniffed my shirt, but no mashed-potato-olfactory-bells were triggered. We were camping at a church campground on Labor Day weekend, but I knew that her observation was not caused by the great outdoors. You see, she had noted this about me previously, in the comfort of whatever it is that our family home smells like.

I remembered that when I was a child, I thought adults were... well, kind of gross. When they sweated, they didn't smell good, and adult bathroom smells -- yuck! And they had hair in weird places, and funny looking skin, and their breath was not always the best. Now, I am the adult, and my youngest buttercup is telling me that I smell like mashed potatoes.

I thought about mashed potatoes. You know, I like mashed potatoes, done right with a hint of milk and topped with butter and salt.

I also noticed that she hadn't moved away from me, nor made any funny faces. Being the opportunistic father that I am, I decided to take it as a compliment.



Reesa sidled up next to me at the campfire the following night and stated, "You're sitting here by yourself."

"Yeah," I replied, "no one else will sit next to me. I think it's because I smell like mashed potatoes."

She paused for a moment. "Well," she concluded, "maybe another boy that smells like mashed potatoes will sit next to you."


Photo source: Wikipedia Commons/ National Cancer Institute

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