Max Factor and Other Comments

At one time in our early married years, a trip through the perfume section of department stores consistently brought comments:

“Phew, that stink upsets my sinus.”

“You can’t ever wear that scent. It upsets my nose too much.”

The kids swear he would make comments about heavily-scented women in public such as

“God, that woman smells like guano. What did she do roll in it?”

I don’t know if his sensitivity to smells were related to ADHD, but his impulsive or insensitive comments likely were related to it.

Through the years, he has learned not to shout those types of comments in public. That is an aspect of his learning: the behavior changes he has made in specific situations.

His olfactory nerves send interesting messages to his brain, to say the least. He can smell the odors associated with certain recipes and well-nigh tell me each ingredient in the dish.

I have several memories of his reaction to public odors and perfumes. Many of them make sense knowing his aversion to strong scent and artificial smells.

My favorite recollection involved another church acquaintance, Dora. She and her husband were both petite individuals with a classy sense of style and pristine manners about their persons. By the time we met them, he was a retired florist, and she was retired from a local aircraft company. I estimate they were in their early 70’s. Dora chose to wear thick, heavy matte makeup such as she might have worn in the 1940’s. Her hair reflected styles from the early 1960’s, her eyebrows were plucked, then repainted, and her perfume was abundant.

In other words, it appeared Dora used several products to prepare herself for public. Husband often walked in the opposite direction when he saw Dora might pass him in hallways or church aisles. When we would see them mall walking, he found ways to stand far back from her. The scents associated with her products were highly offensive, and if he got too much of her perfumes and make-up odor, he would get a sinus infection. Literally.

After several years of being at our church, Dora and her husband began attending another congregation. In spite of the offensiveness of her make-up regimen, on occasion Husband mentioned how our meetings seemed empty without them. Of course, Husband could never remember her name, so he referred to her as the woman married to the retired florist. I immediately knew whom he meant.

Four or five years after being gone from our church, one morning I looked up to see the spritely couple standing before our congregation. They looked surprisingly similar to the last time they attended our church. He always smiled with a professional winsomeness, and she always posed for the crowd. They presented themselves for renewed church membership.

I was delighted to see them, but this time, I could not remember her name. Our pastor had not yet introduced them, so quietly I leaned toward Husband who was standing tall beside me with a somber and expressionless face.

“Oh, look! It is Ansel and, and, and. Shoot, I can’t remember her name.”

Without taking time to change expressions or even to blink, Husband instantly replied, “Max Factor.”

I leaned over the pew in an explosion of laughter, which in itself is funny enough. However, standing in the pew directly in front of us, a group of college young adults heard us and my laughter. They heard him refer to Dora as Max Factor, and they turned to see him do so without an ounce of expression on his face.

They, too, burst into laughter, which caused the row of college people ahead of them to turn and ask why they were laughing. By the time our pastor introduced Ansel and Dora, three rows loudly stifled giggles and chuckles.

The corners of Husband’s mouth turned up ever so slightly, but he merely looked at me with his characteristic What? in his eyes.

Later, when I apologized to our pastor for the laughter and noise, he simply said,  

“When I see your husband in the midst of a laughing crowd, I don’t bother wondering what is going on. I just know he has said something.”