1) I remember someone telling me once that “new car smell” is actually all the rubber, plastic, and chemicals in your car airing out for the first time. So while it’s a strangely intoxicating smell, it will probably give you cancer. Which is why I didn’t really mind that our car never really had that oh-so-special new car smell.

However, it’s basically been 50 degrees below freezing since we bought that car, and apparently that was keeping all that scent in. The second the temperature crept up above 35 or so, the new car smell kicked in. I guess all that rubber, plastic, and chemicals was just waiting for a little sun to warm it up.

That smell is so recognizable, and it’s really strange to suddenly be smelling it in our 3 month old car. I have to admit, it does seem like it’s new all over again. (And getting better fuel economy now that it is warmer too! Can’t wait to see what we get in the summer.)

2) Have you ever smelled tea tree oil? Because I sure have.

Tea tree oil is an essential oil, which I think basically translates as “smelly oil”. We had a bottle of this stuff sitting in the laundry room and, by a Rube Goldberg-esque series of luck and coincidences, I managed to topple something, which toppled something, which broke the bottle on the floor. Whooo boy. Wikipedia describes the scent as “camphorous“, which means it basically smells like a combination of powerful cleaning solvents and 1940’s era purging medicine.

What could be worse than breaking a bottle of concentrated stink in the laundry room? If it’s winter and your furnace is housed in said laundry room. About a minute or so after the bottle broke, the furnace kicked on and spread the smell throughout the house.

It really wasn’t so bad. Cleaning / medicinal is really very far from the worst smell you could have circulating through your air ducts. However, any sufficiently strong smell can be pretty overpowering when you’re unable to escape it.

Between the two, it was a pretty smelly weekend.