Citronella Oil

You won't believe this, but Sam wanted to make me look trendy. Yeah I know! Me! As if I wasn't already trendy enough. Anyway what she did was, she bought me a really nice jumper as a Valentines gift. Well you know by now how much I like her, so of course I went along with her plan.

We were going out that evening so I wore my new trendy jumper, and I have to say it did look good on me. Or maybe it was that my slim perfectly honed torso was particularly well suited to the modern style. Yes that's probably it.

Fashion icon that I undoubtedly am I teamed my new jumper with a pair of designer jeans, and my goodness I did look the business. There was a slight problem though regarding footwear, nothing I had was casual enough. But then, just as I was about to enter the pit of despair, I remembered a pair of shoes that my daughter Jodie had given me a long time ago. I had put them away in the cupboard after only wearing them a couple of times because they were too tight. This was at a time when I was going through a fat foot stage of my life!

Anyway I found them at the back of the cupboard and despite the passage of time they still looked trendy enough to go with my new jumper. Unfortunately they didn't smell too good. I have no idea why. All I can think is that some smelly footed unknown person had borrowed them at some time without my knowledge. Really some people!

Luckily I am an extremely resourceful man and it wasn't long before I hit on the answer to this malodorous problem. Did you notice that word? Malodorous. I don't know where I get this phenomenal grasp of the English language. Phenomenal, that's another one. Where was I? Oh yes of course my resourcefulness. That's another long word.

Concentrated citronella oil. I had some in a small bottle. I used it last summer to keep insects away. It works too. It is very powerful stuff. What happens is that you put a couple of drops in an oil burner thing and the resulting vapour keeps the mosquito's away.

So what I did was, I put a drop of this oil in each shoe. Then I put a couple more drops in just to make sure the bad smell had gone. Then I decided it wouldn't hurt to put a few more drops in, you know just to be absolutely certain that the shoe smell was properly masked. In the end I think I put about a dozen drops of this concentrated citronella oil in each shoe!

When I arrived at Sam's my trendy, and to me sweetly scented shoes, were immediately banished from the house. Thrown outside actually. Down the garden path. Away from the front door. Without ceremony. How hurtful.

She has a very good sense of smell you see, and I have to admit the scent of lemons was overpowering. A person with no nose could have smelled those shoes. A person with no head even!

This was a bit embarrassing for me, but what happened next was even worse. I had to sit on the couch with both feet in the air while she sprayed my citronella permeated socks with a can of air freshener! Not only that but her Mother was sitting on the couch beside me while she did it! Oh how we all did laugh.

This was the first time I have had my feet sprayed with air freshener, a novel experience. I didn't mind though. The way I looked at it was that it showed she cared. However, thinking about it later, maybe what it really shows is that she doesn't like the scent of citronella oil!

I hung the offending footwear on the washing line when I got home. They are still hanging there eight days later and still stink of lemons. The good thing is though, there are no insects to be seen around here. Which means that no clothes moths are likely to eat my trendy new jumper!