What's that smell?

Sense memory is a strange and wonderful thing.

When I was a little boy, my mother used Pacquin Hand Cream all day, every day. Mom has always had a problem with dry skin, but her hands, which she used all day at the factory, and then continued to use at home while cooking dinner and cleaning, would particularly suffer. Pacquin had (and I'm sure still has) a very distinct fragrance. It's medicated, so the perfumes mix with the menthol oils and form something wholly unique. Unfortunately, I've inherited Mom's dry skin issues, but that's another story. Anyway ... Mom would buy Pacquin in bulk ... 6 or 7 tubs at a time. There would always be unopened tubs in the linen closet, just waiting for their chance to medicate and soothe. It's really thick stuff, too ... almost like paste.

My brother Michael and I would lament dinners with salad served as a starter, because when Mom would toss the salad, she'd use her bare hands. And more often than not, those hands had just been blessed with the medicinal goodness of Pacquin Hand Cream. I'm not sure about anyone else, but Michael and I were never able to develop a fondness for Pacquin salad dressing, so we'd cringe when we'd see the salad bowl in the middle of the dinner table. We'd always cut our own slices of bread ... pretty much always do anything for ourselves that would otherwise require the Hand Cream Queen to touch something. Don't get me wrong -- my Mom was a bang-up cook and we always loved dinner ... but those salads! ACK!!

So this morning, my co-worker stopped by my desk to chat, suss out the day, and gather things for her first appointment. She was wringing her hands together, and I could tell she was simply rubbing in some lotion ... working with paperwork all day has a tendency to dry out one's hands, and I do the lotion thing a lot, myself. As we were chatting, I caught a whiff of her hand cream, and was instantly transported back 20-odd years to my childhood.

"Are you using Pacquin Hand Cream?" I asked.

"Yeah ... it's the only thing that works for me," she replied. "It's lightly medicated, so my hands don't crack."

I laughed and told her my story. She laughed along with me and then slowly developed a quizzical look, tilting her head to one side and sighing.

"I always make salad with my pasta dishes, and of course, I mix it all up with my hands. And now, my daughter won't eat her salad with dinner anymore!" she said. "I wonder if it's because of the hand cream?!?"

I tried to muffle my guffaw, but it didn't work.
"It doesn't have a particularly pleasant taste," I said, and we both laughed again.

Mom has since moved on to other hand creams ... Bag Balm, Udder Cream, and other such greasy concoctions she swears by, praising their therapeutic values. I tried the Bag Balm once, and maybe I'm just a perv, but it reminded me way too much of wanton nights with an industrial sized tube of lube. I'll stick to my Aveeno, thank you.