The sweet smell of success

I don’t know about you, but I love candles. I burn them for the ambiance they provide, but also for the smell. Unfortunately, it’s not always convenient or safe to have flaming jars of wax sitting around the house. Thus, maintaining a pleasing aroma inside can be problematic.

Scent-wise, I’ve been on a pumpkin-spice kick for a few months now, but the onset of Christmas displays and their heavy-handed use of scented potpourri has put me in more of an apple-cinnamon mood. That’s good news however, because apple-cinnamon is a pretty popular scent, which means it’s available for enjoyment via alternate, aka: non-flaming, delivery methods.

I went to the store last night and picked up some Glade stink-in-a-can (or whatever it’s called). I also noticed some of those outlet heater units with apple-cinnamon stink cartridges (or whatever they’re called). I’ve used the cartridges before, and I was reasonably sure that I had somewhere between two and 25 of the heater units in drawers around the house, so I opted for a refill pack of apple-cinnamon cartridges.

When I got home I went to look for a heater unit. My first stop was the junk drawer in the kitchen. Well...one of the junk drawers in the kitchen. After I dug around for a while with no luck, I decided the drawer was in desperate need of organization, culling and perhaps a flame of its own.

I took everything out of said drawer and let me tell you, the thing was packed full of way more stuff than should have reasonably fit inside. It was kind of creepy. I half expected a couple of clowns to jump out at the end! Anyway, since I’m sure you’re all dying to know, I made a list of some of the things I found. Here goes:

a grey utility knife (blade open), a pair of garden gloves, an English bobby whistle, a magnifying glass, a $10 discount coupon for Bath & Body Works (expired 12/19/04), two golf balls, a deck of cards, a large spool of string, an unopened package of drapery-rod brackets, a box of matches, the user guide for a cell phone I no longer own, the battery for a different cell phone I no longer own, a box of eight Crayola crayons, four partially used tubes of frosting (red, green, yellow & blue), an alarm for a sliding glass door ( although my house doesn’t have a sliding door), a black utility knife (blade closed), a pack of AAA batteries, a box of Crayola washable markers, a spool of Happy Birthday ribbon, a calculator, a waterproof disposable camera with 15 pictures remaining, yellow ear plugs, black ear phones, enough tiny bags of “extra” screws to make me seriously question the stability of my IKEA furniture, a drywall rasp, a sealed cellophane bag with five popsicle sticks inside, a pipe cutter, a temporary tattoo featuring a yellow alien, a plastic putty knife, a Swatch watch, two rolls of carpet tape, a cam lock, a roll of Scotch tape, a pair of glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth, a black Sharpie marker, a yellow utility knife (blade open), a recipe for hamburger goulash, a full size hammer, three packs of gum, a wooden ruler, a metal triangle, a card good for a round of golf at Turtle Greens golf course, a reflective arm band and finally, the receipt from the moving company that brought my stuff here on April 26, 2002. The price tag of that transaction appears to have been $297.50.

Not to worry though, because I did find a couple of the outlet heater things I was looking for in the first place. I also found six floral scented cartridges, and wouldn’t you know it, an unopened box of apple-cinnamon refill cartridges. (D’oh!)