Aren't our olfactory senses just incredible? I mean, let's take a look at my current situation. I realized I have something along the lines of two hours until my next class begins, and I am in the University of Utah library next to this guy who I'm fairly sure is not a student... Or a hygienically oriented one, anyhow. This guy has that smell; that smell of whiskey, hard drugs, not showering for several weeks, and oddly keeps making strange noises.
Now where have I smelled that all before (and how do I know it's whiskey, hard drugs and BO?)? Ah, yes. Suddenly I'm on the streets of Costa Rica in an area called Ipis, which was considered to be the third most dangerous place in the whole country. Suddenly, I hear a gruff man in a sleeveless salmon shirt say something to me. He asks for a dollar (in English), and when we don't give it to him, he starts saying every swear word he knows in English. I think he only DIDN'T know, like, two. My companion starts getting angry. He yells at him. I just keep walking and thinking who all to include in my will. We walk a fair distance away, and the man picks up a loose piece of asphalt and throws it. He misses. Riback walks away with his black umbrella in hand, carrying it like a lead pipe in a fatal game of real life Clue, minus the mansion, and the color, and the... well, okay, the only similarity is a lead pipe.
And all of this I remember, because this guy next to me smells like the asphalt throwing dude. Just one whiff, and BAM! I remember everything. If only you could identify which mathematical problem-solving techniques one ought to use by smell. "Yeah, this one smells like a quadratic formula equation."
Smell ya later.
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