Scratch and Sniff

I love to spend a couple of hours with the Los Angeles Times on Sunday mornings...I turn on some music, put on a fire and drink in the whole paper, along with a pot of coffee...while still in my jammies.
Today's paper weighed double what it usually does. The advertisement section was BURSTING with "last minute sales" for Christmas shoppers...I love love love to look at the ads and at all the crap I don't need. I finished my Christmas shopping several weeks ago--thank you Amazon.com--and look forward to NOT entering the mall except to take my neice to see Santa sometime this week.
The most INTERESTING ad today was the "Fragrance Gift Guide", courtesy of Macy's. Twenty-four glossy pages of perfumes and colognes with at LEAST 10 little sub-ads that fell out of the guide as I turned the pages. EACH of them had a little 'scratch & sniff' peely thing on it so you could actually smell the fragrance. (OK, you don't have to scratch it...)
I have not worn perfume in years...I kinda prefer the aroma of something delicious cooking in the kitchen or the smell of a warm summer night at a baseball game...but I couldn't resist peeling every freekin' one and sniffing them all!
Among the sniffables in the "guide" were things that I WOULD love to buy in a bottle: "Romance", "Euphoria" and "Pleasure"
Among the ones I would NOT want to buy in a bottle--"Baby Phat", "Poison" "PURE Poison" and "Insolence"
Half the guide was "celebrity" fragrances--"Just Me" from Paris Hilton ($49), "Fantasy" from Britney Spears($55), "With love" from Hilary Duff (come on!!), and others from Sarah Jessica Parker, Vera Wang and, of course, several from J-Lo.
The one I used to wear (and I am not sure why I stopped wearing it, except perhaps because of the $89.50 price tag) was also in there--Jessica McClintock...no peely thing on that ad...but I remember that I liked that fragrance a lot and I really liked the way it smelled on me.
For men--GREAT fragrance names--"Black", "Double Black", "Chrome", "Onyx", and "Full Throttle" (Yikes!) They all literally smell like a handsome man....and for $65 to $85--they should!!

I remember going to Zody's and buying a bottle of "Love's Baby Soft" for my mom along with a bottle of "High Karate" for my dad...and spending MAYBE five bucks total...
No 24 page fragrance guide, no celebrity endorsements, no high pricetags, and no little peely things...
Just the SWEET smell of the good ol' days...