THE NOSE KNOWS

(The Flaming Bore is in Brain Freeze-Mode this morning because the weather has turned frightfully cold; therefore, I am re-printing a dandy little essay I wrote maybe ten years ago. It's longer than my usual blog, so set your snooze alarm.)

Is there anyone out there besides me who detests those scent strips that seem to have invaded magazine advertising in recent years? The perfume industry has created some noxious plot with the publishers to bombard readers with their stinkin' ads, thinking that this is a great idea to generate sales. I say it smells of a conspiracy.

The other day I settled down with my Entertainment Weekly and a turkey sandwich, prepared to read all about the "eternally hip" John Travolta, when I was attacked by the "essence" of Calvin Klein's "one"--touted as a unisex "fragrance for a man AND a woman." Now, it was bad enough that the models pictured with the ad looked like anorexic heroin addicts who had escaped from a circus freak show, BUT the worst part about it was the accompanying scent strip.

In the good old days, one had to scratch and sniff a pre-treated area on the perfume ad before being exposed to the lethal fumes. Thanks to advanced aroma technology, however, the reader is now immediately overwhelmed by the stench upon getting withing 50 feet of the infected magazine. Removing the culprit does little to cure the problem, as a lingering odor seems to permeate every page.

The effects these scent strips have on their victims obviously varies from sniffer to sniffer. I, fortunately, only suffer from day-long throbbing headaches and slight nausea. There is rumored to be medical documentation, however, of more sensitive smellers who've landed in trauma units when their lungs became clogged with aroma residue upon opening their magazines. Call 9-1-1! This is not good.

So, to combat the onslaught on noses everywhere, I took it upon myself to counterattack with a letter-writing campaign to every magazine that has fallen prey to this maddening advertising trend. One must be assertive when dealing with the forces of evil. I got out my pen and paper and proceeded to write EW a kind request to eliminate its use of scent strips. I labored over the wording, attempting to avoid any hints of hostility, and proofread my work, which wasn't easy considering the fact that Calvin's "one" was starting to cloud my vision.

When the masterpiece was ready to mail, I cautiously re-opened the magazine to locate an address for the envelope. Lo and behold, right there in fine print, was the following message: "Entertainment Weekly sometimes carries ads containing perfume or cologne samples. Subscribers who would prefer copies without the scent strips should..." write or call a toll-free number. I scrapped my letter and staggered to the phone, regardless of the fact that my previous experiences calling 1-800 numbers have typically left me subjected to elevator music for 45 minutes--another aggravation of life that will need to be addressed in a separate diatribe.

I am pleased to report that Entertainment Weekly only kept me waiting for 13 seconds before Norma of Customer Service came on the line to forever free me from the torture of scented advertising in that particuar magazine. Of course, it will take two to three weeks to make the necessary adjustments, but that's all right. I'll need about the same amount of time to recover from "one."

I think that it's mighty nice that publishers are finally giving their subscribers an option to have stink-free magazines, but this still doesn't solve the problem for those who buy magazines right off the rack or check them out from the library. Perhaps a warning label could be attached by the Surgeon General: "This magazine contains one of those obnoxious scent strips that could possibly make you violently ill or give you the appearance of being an anorexic herion addict who has escaped from a circus freak show." Either way, beware!!