DID I SMELL LIKE GARLIC OR WAS IT HEAPS

Today, at Beam Ray I sat next to Miss Long Underwear. She is usually there all day so she brings stuff to eat. She opened a Tupperware container today and the smell of garlic filled the room. I raised one eyebrow. "Wow," I said, "What is the sauce on that dish?"

"I don't do sauce," She said.

All rightey then, I thought in my snarkiest inner voice as I tried to do the shallow breathing, but the garlic! Oh my.

I thought of that Peter Sellers PINK PANTHER movie where he has on the hunchback costume when the phone starts to ring. He puts his hands over his ears and lurches all over the room, saying, "The bells! The bells!" I wanted to put my hands over my nose and say, "The smells! The smells!" I wanted to lurch all over the room, too. I wanted to lurch out the door.

Her "breakfast" was potatoes, garlic--equal portions, I'm convinced--carrots and something else, maybe green onions. She finally put it away. In twenty minutes she got it out again. It really did smell good, but oh my. I didn't want to smell it, not at Beam Ray, anyway.

Phil was extra nice to Miss Long Underwear. He later told me that I was indeed snarky, and not just in my inner voice either, and he wanted to be nice to make up for my bad attitude.

We were there about an hour and fifteen minutes and then Phil dropped me at Heaps, where I was meeting friends for lunch. We were chatting in the lobby, waiting for everyone to get there when one of our friends came in. The first thing she said was, "It sure smells good in here!"

It was me. I just know that it was me.

That's me, on the bottom row, second from the right. You can recognize me by the garlic fumes emanating from my clothes, skin, hair, jewelry and anything else I have on.

Photo and outing organized by Pam, who always has a plethora of good ideas.

PS I really do like Miss Long Underwear. She has a certain amount of charm and is way more cheerful in one day than I can be in a month. She says she has had a lot of health problems and they are going away with her Beam Ray devotion. I don't know why I was snarky. I think I must have the snark gene and it becomes dominant when garlic is present. Maybe I have vampire tendencies, too and the garlic just made me want to go into a dark room and lean against a wall. Maybe I should write a book. (A little TWILIGHT humor for you to hold your head in your hands about.)