Over the weekend, a toothpaste purchase pushed my bathroom cabinet into chaos. A cleansing was in order, and I pulled everything out to separate the wheat from the proverbial chaff.

It was alarming how much of the chaff dated back to high school or earlier. There were lots of little shampoos I swear came from debate tournament hotel rooms. Old empty prescription bottles from 1992. I never knew I had so much floss.

And waaaay in the back were three bottles of high school memories: Brut, Old Spice, and Aqua Velva. (Surprisingly, I didn’t get much action in high school.)

Right before I was going to throw the three bottles out, I had this vision of their alcohol-laden contents exploding in some trash bin, so I decided to empty them out before tossing them. I poured all three into my sink Sunday morning.

And now my sink smells like an overanxious freshman. Try as I might, the smell won’t go away.

(If this was a This American Life piece, this is the part where I’d draw a larger meaning about how our youth defines us in ways we only discover later. But this isn’t a This American Life piece, so I’ll just end the post.)

28 October 2002

Comments

28 October | 13:36 | karen

actually, I have a soft spot for guys that wear old spice...but I cannot imagine how your bathroom smells now. Eeewwww..

28 October | 15:28 | Jamie

I love the walk down memory lane! However, my boyfriend in high school, always wore the same thing, "Polo", by Ralph Lauren. I can't forget the little green bottle. Every guy in his circle of friends kept that cologne in the glove compartment of their lowered v-dub! The smell of Polo and peach fuzzy navels go hand in hand for me.

28 October | 16:34 | maud

Josh, very nice. Why dontcha make the changes & submit to TAL? Why not?

Jamie, I think maybe you & I had the same high school boyfriend and penchant for fuzzy navels (I'm not sure I could drink one now). Except that the guy I dated had a lowered truck instead of a VW bug.

29 October | 14:26 | christy

I still can't forget the high school standbys of Drakkar Noir and Obsession, still in my sniffer memory to this day.

30 October | 21:49 | Lisa

Hi Josh, just logged on to crabwalk after a looong hiatus. Too busy with school ... and Oscar, the freshman who likes to annoy me. Today his tactic was dumping some sort of cheap cologne all over the room. Real fun. But it did cover up all the other smells from freshman boys.

31 October | 10:23 | Wendy

If your sink still stinks, maybe that old elementary school fun mixture of vinegar and baking soda (you it foams up when you mix them) might help out....That sucks, I couldn't imagine getting a whiff of that on a Sunday morning, with a hangover.

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Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)