Hello, Ladies...

It's that time of year again...  The bees are flying.  The pollen is covering my car.  Flowers are blooming.  ...and my neighborhood smells like dirty crotch.  Yeah, I said it.  A Pescadaria.  It's terrible. And it's powerful enough to make you gag as you stroll through the lovely tree lined streets.

Bradford. Pears.  We had one in our yard.  Lovely tree, really.  It bloomed these beautiful white blossoms, was the last to lose its leaves.  And totally fouled up the place.  Funny how it took us near six years in our home to notice the stench.  But notice we did!

One day, walking out of work, the breeze blew and I smelled it.  OMG!  A little part of me died inside.  "That poor woman," I thought to myself, and got into my car with my husband.  We drove to our sitter's and picked up the kidlets.  We drove home.  I got out of the car...a breeze blew...and you guessed it, I smelled it again!

Good Christ, could that be me?!?  I put my bag onto the ground and knelt down to "fix" my shoe.  I thought I was being stealth.  Apparently not, as my husband came up beside me and said, "Don't worry, there is NO WAY that smell is you, or else we all would have died in the car!"  I felt relieved, yet mortified.  He smelled it too!  Well, if it wasn't me...  WTF was it? ?  We surveyed the yard and couldn't imagine what it was.  Hmph.

That evening, our family went for a walk.  We turned down a street and my first thought was of how gorgeous it was; lined with these beautiful white trees.  My next, and immediate, rumination was, "Jesus Christ kids: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!  YOU'RE GOING TO SUFFOCATE!"  As my husband looked at me and delivered the punchline from his favorite stupid joke, we realized it was the trees!  I couldn't believe it.  No tree could smell that bad...and yet -

He looked at me as if in challenge.  I accepted.  Unspoken, I walked up to the closest tree, pulled a branch down and took a whiff.  I doubled over, gagging.  He started laughing.  Immediately, our children asked what was wrong with me and why their father was laughing at my dilemma.

"Nothing kids...Mommy just doesn't like the smell of the tree."  It was hot.  And humid.  And we realized that if we didn't make double-time, we were going to die as there was zero breeze to move this stagnant and repulsive air.  Quickly we turned around and made back for home.

A small while later while I was inside, I heard the hubs laughing hysterically while playing with the kids in the driveway.  The back door opened, then slammed.  In comes my oldest with the most infectious smile on her face.

"What is it, Baby?  What is so funny?"

"Well, I picked this flower for you, and Daddy said you would love it!"

Confused I stepped forward to look at the flower crushed in her palm.

"And he said I should tell you where I picked it from."

Bewildered I asked, "Okay?  Wherever did you pick it?"

"Oh, I picked it off the 'Fishstick Tree'. [insert the sound of me choking on my own spit].  It's that white one in our front yard [pointing with her chubby finger]  I named it the 'Fishstick Tree' because that's what it smells like: like cold fishsticks..."

I've never looked at those trees the same again.