Friday, November 7, 2008

The smells of Stillwater

...the inexplicably smelly city.

I was riding around town today, commuting between my apartment, campus, and my third place, the local hipster coffee shop...Oh geez, I'm still in
italics, aren't I?

Hold on.

Much better. Now, as I was saying, I've been on my bike quite a bit today, and I've noticed something a bit odd about the air. So far I've ruled out the following hypotheses:

1.) Love is in the air - I happen to know for a fact that this one isn't the case. Love, when in the air, tends to smell a bit like a gitmo cell: a distinct sense of disillusionment and lack of freedom. Stillwater today smells more like corn dogs and poo.

2.) The dawning of a new era - I would like to believe that after the Obama election, that the birds would be happily singing, people would be whistling merry tunes, and the mirthful creatures of the forest would be out and about, happily coexisting with humans, making apple pies and hanging American flags around. Subsequently, the inevitable smell of animal droppings would surely be drowned out by the smell of hope. This, apparently, is also not the case.

3.) Carnival in town? - Also no. I mentioned before that the offensive odor was that of corn dogs and poo, but I purposefully didn't mention that these two smells were very distinctly in different parts of the city. I bring it up now to disprove the carnival hypothesis, because the two smells coincident would be clear and distinct proof of the existence of the carnival--evidence which would be clearer than the sight of large, dangerous machinery being operated by disheveled disillusionados. (Holy crap, I thought that I made up that last word, but it's totally checking out with the google spellcheck. Yay for me.)

4.) Impending danger - This is my last good hypothesis, and, being the only one left standing, is obviously the correct one. (Yay for the scientific method!) I was almost hit by a car today...but no, that can't be it.

Looks like I'm safe, then. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to bike home in the dead of night, without head or tail lights, down a busy street, with only my limited wits and a pretty good caffeine buzz to keep me safely on two wheels.

See you tomorrow.

No comments: