"I can still smell you…"-Beth Orton

I'm so busy dealing with my divorce that I don't have time to deal with my divorce.

Sigh. Yes it makes sense. Go ahead, reread it.

Take your time….

Did you work it out? Can we go on?

Good.

So yesterday was delivery day. Delivery men swept in from around the world bearing packages of gold frankincense and myrrh. I find you just can't have enough myrrh. Oh, and speaking of Franken-scents. I picked up a new smell.

A common marital branding ritual is scent establishment. It's a subtle process, and usually goes unnoticed. Before I married MyWife I wore Fahrenheit, a nice spicy smell, it excited all the neighborhood dogs. One of our first Christmases together, she gave me Pleasures (well yeah, that too, but we're talking about the scent by the same name. Which, by the way, smells completely different. It's a fruit/spice smell. Not the same unless-nevermind). Having been married before, her branding instinct was high, she knew not all bulls like branding, especially since it means "Property of."

MyWife bought the scent set: Aftershave cream and cologne. See? Guys like shave cream. Shave cream good. It's cooling and it heals our sensitive skin. That's right, our face is where we hide all of our sensitivity. I probably shouldn't have told you that. The aftershave is what did the trick; I'm gonna wear it. I need it, and once I put it on, I couldn't wear an unmatched cologne. It's either wear her scent or nothing at all.

One bull, appropriately branded, no wrestling, rustling, or bruising. From there out, everyone knew I belonged to MyWife. Oh girls could sniff, but they couldn't touch. And if they showed up with a bottle of their own stink, chances are they'd be shot for poaching.

Now she's gone, I don't really want to wear that smell. I've changed out my aftershave cream for a soothing unscented variety (Lab Series if you must know), and I've gone shopping for a new essence, something that says "New Rob!" with lights and flare, but in a more heterosexual manner.

I drove to Macy's and the men's fragrance bar hunting for a scent, one problem: I'm a guy. I don't know what I want to smell like. I'm told my sweat isn't good. Ok, but there are hundreds of smells not called "Robstink" what do I want to wear? It's like giving a kid a buck, sending him to the 7/11 and saying "Buy one piece of candy." You won't see him again until you send in a search party. He's vacillating between the Big Hunk and the Snickers bar, mouth agape…lost, until he gets a brain reset.

So there I stood, mouth agape, nose immersed, mind in idle, swaying from leg to leg.

"Here try this." the vendor is here proffering her wares. She hands me a tiny vial on a business card.

"Uh." That means good. I fumble with the cap, and manage to not spill the whole thing on me.

Sniff, Sniff. Not bad, kind of like Fahrenheit, but still different.

Swish, swish. It tastes richer, has a fuller body. Not oaky.

Dab, dab. Ok, it smells good on me. Not overpowering.

A sexy shill strolls past, "Mmmm, you smell nice."

"I'll take keg." That's how we measure liquids: shots and kegs. Shill or not, she spoke to me, I'll take a keg.

So now I have a new scent. I'm a new Rob with a new smell that says "Property of no one." It's called "Curve" and not to be confused with the similarly titled women's workout place. Although they could bottle that smell, and men would buy it, it's just not what I'm wearing. But, if you scratch the top left of your screen you can smell what am wearing. Go ahead do it. I've coded some scratch and sniff HTML, and it's should give you my fragrance. It's that spot just below the blue bar. Smell it?

Ok, I think what scares me most is that one person is busy scratching their screen right now. To you, the one person I say, "It's not working? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, it's a pay-sniff site. Send me your credit card info, and I'll get you 30 days smell."

To the rest of you I say, next time you're in Macy's ask to smell Rob. They'll let you.