Caution: Wet Cement

I was lying on the sofa, enjoying the company of my wife - an event so rarely gifted to me that I barely knew how to describe it - when I was descended upon by my oldest sons.  They came and lay down across me on the couch.  I could smell their stinky heads.

A conversation started about various candle scents and a number of unusual smells which we had encountered at a shop during a recent trip - beer, grass and leather.  Mandles, if you will.

Ethan suggested that another good scent would be wet cement.

"I love the smell of wet cement," Justin said.

"You do?" I asked, trying to imagine Justin making a career in organized crime.

"Oh, yes.  Wouldn't that be awesome?"

Well, it certainly gave me pause.

"When have you smelled wet cement?" I wondered aloud.

While the words hung in the air, it dawned on me that I had been sucked in.  Only minutes previously I had been enjoying a few of the rare boy-free moments in my life, and now I was at the bottom of a dog pile, knee deep in a discussion about cement-scented candles.

C'est la guerre.

- 17 January 2012