the best smell

At game night tonight, the question arose: what is your favorite smell? Technically speaking, I think the question should have been "what is your favorite SCENT".

Tough to pick a favorite, so here are my top five:

5) hot garlic pepper chicken wings from the Wing Shak (they singe your nose hairs, in a good way)
4) gasoline
3) a freshly-opened bag of real red licorice (like Kookaburra, but definitely not like Twizzlers or Nibs)
2) lilac bushes in bloom
1) freshly-cut grass

I looked around to see if there are consensus answers on this question. Apparently, studies have shown that lavender and peppermint score the highest on tests for pleasant smells. Also among the most popular: vanilla, the ocean, bacon, roses, and pine.

I've also read that people who suffer from sensory deprivation of one or more of the other five sense tend to have a much stronger sense of smell. I wonder if their answers to this question would be different.

And your favorite scent?

the balance of the universe

- I don't think the happiest people in the world are in Denmark.

- Tell me, please tell me, how I'm supposed to explain to a seven year-old the reason why Tiger Woods doesn't show up to play in two-thirds of the PGA tournaments each year.

- Almost everything in the world can be distilled down to being a zero-sum game.

- The grass almost always seems greener on the other side. Almost always, it is not.

My philosphy on all of it is that you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have, the facts of life.