And Flights Of Angels Sing Thee To Thy HOLY JESUS WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

What other blogger quotes Hamlet when discussing poo and creepy bathroom candles? What? You didn't know that's what I was talking about? Well, now you do.

Also: welcome to my blogging at 10:30 at night.

(When I was in college, I couldn't study late at night. Oh, I could cram with the best of them, just not the night before. My system shuts down and I become MI-TEE punchy. And brain-dumb. Instead, I'd set the alarm for 4 or 5 a.m. and hop out of bed and everything would make a lot more sense. My point is, I shouldn't be blogging now. You're welcome.)

So today I was just innocently and slooooowly wandering down the grocery store aisles, reveling in my child sleeping soundly in her carrier in the grocery cart, hoping that I could waste enough time at Safeway to ensure she slept for at least 30 solid minutes, since instead of napping at the gym daycare she screamed bloody murder the entire time and they had to come get me after 25 minutes of elliptical-ing because guess who's entered the age of separation anxiety?

I found myself in the household cleaner aisle, whereupon I remembered that I needed to replace our it-might-be-toxifying-the-air-but-at-least-it-smells-better-than-the-alternative candle in the downstairs bathroom.

Right? I mean, I buy fancy powerful air-freshening candles for the most frequently used bathroom in the house for the same reason that EVERYONE has an air-freshening candle (or spray or whatever) in their most frequently used bathroom in the house.

I couldn't remember what brand or flavor the last candle was, but it had lasted forever and smelled so good that one of the cleaning people -- the PREGNANT cleaning person*, in fact -- was all, "OHMYGOD what IS THAT? It smells AMAZING." And if there is one person in the world who would know a great chemically scented product when she smells it, it's a person who deals with cleaners all day long WHILE having the pregnant-lady nose of a bloodhound thing going on.

So since Safeway appeared only to have Glade candles, I perused my options. I tend to like "clean" smells, like linen or some of the lighter lavender scents. I am naturally drawn toward white candles and white jars.

Which is how I came to discover that Glade makes a candle called, "Angel Whispers."

Seriously:

And I'm sorry, but this just creeps me the fuck out.

First of all (though least of my concerns, actually), I don't think anyone can smell a whisper. That is because you can't smell sounds. Unless that sound is a burp. And that's not only totally disgusting, it's also totally impossible because angels which, oh hey, are make-believe don't so much eat. And if you're going to argue that angels do eat, because this is the internet and someone is willing to argue just about anything, you will not be able to convince me that they're eating anything so gross that they're producing burps we can smell. Let alone that we'd want to mass market.

MORE IMPORTANT, however, than the issue of not being able to smell angel whispers, is the fact that I don't want ANYTHING whispering at me while I'm on the toilet. Least of all an angel.

I literally stood there in the Safeway aisle, holding the Angel Whispers candle, finding myself getting offended at all the things an angel might whisper about me in the bathroom.

"Fear not, for I-- Holy Hell, woman! What are you DOING in here?"

And what would you tell your guests? They would come out of the bathroom looking confused and scared, and you would ask if everything was okay, and then they'd be all, "I think I heard voices. In the bathroom. Like...someone whispering at me? And they were saying things about God? Maybe? Or commenting on the size of my ass? I don't know. I think I'm going insane.

Except actually you know your guests wouldn't say that because no one in their right mind would admit to hearing angels whispering to them in a bathroom.

[Note: at this point in this blog entry, I looked up from my computer and told Ish about the "Angel Whispers" candle and he stared at me blankly and then I was like, "Well I mean, what do YOU do in the bathroom? What do you think angels would be whispering about YOU?" And then he laughed aloud as he thought of many, many, MANY disgusting and/or vulgar things the angels would whisper about his manly bits, his bodily functions, and his bodily smells.]

[I cannot do them justice so I will not try, but rest assured that my husband thinks the angels would find him impressive in MANY WAYS.

[This is also when I decided to go to bed without hitting "Publish Post".]

Now that I've read this post over in the light of day, I don't really think there's anything to do about it BUT hit "publish."

Well, but let me state for the record that my point isn't that I think buy buying a stupid candle for the bathroom would technically result in angels whispering things about me, I want to know why Glade thinks I want my bathroom to SMELL like angels are whispering things about me.









*Yes. We have cleaning people who come 2x a month. I was entirely uncomfortable about this already (remember the post where I wrote about hiding from the cleaners?) and then one of the girls got pregnant, and now I feel like a horrible human being, and whenever she arrives at my house I freak out and want her to sit down and put her feet up and offer her tea and then my circuits overload and I return to hiding.



Comments

  1. You know what's kind of sad? That I had similar thoughts upon seeing the Angel Whispers candles. Or maybe that's not sad at all. Maybe Glade are the sad ones.

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  2. Angel? WHISPERS? Who THOUGHT of that? Can you imagine the person whose idea that was? "What shall we call this scent? How about 'Angel Whispers'?" What, I mean WHAT. And what does it smell like?

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  4. Oh man.. The one period in my life where I had a cleaning service ended with me bursting into tears in front of the ladies because one of them was in her late 60s and I felt like a terrible granddaughter and human being in general.. Then I cried for a few more hours because I reduced their income by letting them go. (I blame the lack of sleep, immobility, general cabin fever insanity and pain meds after a car accident - which is why I hired a service to begin with. I think if I hadn't been home, I would have been able to handle it.)

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  5. Just for the record: angels don't eat. I know this for a fact because my own daughter informed me, after I told her she was giving her guardian angel a heart attack, that they are beings of light and as such are unable to have heart attacks and would be more likely to have "light attacks" if anything. This would, thinking logically, mean that they don't have stomachs so they don't eat. Very serious business this.

    I must remember to ask her if their whispers smell when she gets home from school. She seems to be some kind of authority on angels. Why I don't know but I've learned not to ask too many questions. Sometimes I don't like the answers.

    Wait a second! I can smell angels whispering! ....is what I would have said if I was a complete nutter.

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  6. BTW, what was the original, good-smelling candle?

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  7. You do realise you could make millions from suckers wanting to hear the whispers of wisdom from you loo angel? If people will travel to see Mother Teresa's face on a barrito, corn chip, or piece of toast, they would flock to a sweet smelling loo (and lets face it that's a miracle in itself) which dispenses epiphanies on life. I can hear it now, "The heavenly father thinks you should lay off the chocolate cake my child for thine arse is obliterating his divine creation the sun" :)

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  8. Oh yeah and I just wrote a post which, in my delirium, references vomit art so I wouldn't worry about a toilet angel post LOL

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  9. What made me laugh most about this post is that you have the angel start with the very biblical, "Fear not!" Somehow, that makes it funnier.

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  10. I had an angel whisper candle once, and let me tell you that "whisper" part is BS! That angel blabbed at me constantly and sometimes even yelled - and not only when I was in the bathroom either. She criticized what I wore, what I said and then somehow knew what I was thinking (pretty sure this is an angel thing) and gave me shit for that too.

    Moral of the story: Angels - great for finding you parking spots, but make really really bad roommates.

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  11. You should always post at 10:30 at night--that was hysterical!

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  12. ummm yea -read the cleaning post and hilarious. I hide from them too - although my situation involved them finding a vibrator on the bedside table (Don't you HATE how you have to clean before they clean?) and so I had to do the honorable thing (because I couldn't look them in the eye) and fire the service. Now, new service and I hope to never see them...

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  13. I imagine Angel Whispers would smell like Philadelphia cream cheese & mean girls. Because the angels from those commercials were totally condescending...even to eachother. I want no parts of that. Especially in the bathroom. That's a pretty vulnerable situation & I'm just not capable of recouping from that kind of hostility. I can already hear them making fun of my laundry day undies. Those bitches.

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  14. I now have "Careless Whispers" in my head, about which I am sad. SAD.

    (And let there be no mistake that I am sad about the song itself as George Michael rules all, but I am sad that now I am associating his brilliant ballad of love gone wrong with a Glade candle. Perhaps I will try to instill "Voices Carry" in my head instead, as I am much less attached to 'Til Tuesday.)

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  15. I have been using that candle scent for awhile now and when I first purchased it - I thought the same thing, what a terrible name for a candle..and then went the opposite thinking - What if they named a strong scented candle "The Devils Scream"..and I thought that was just too funny, so that has been what I call that scent ever since :)

    BTW - I completely understand your woes with service people and cleaning crews in your house when you are there too...and I do the same thing, offer them drinks, and welcome them - I mean isn't that what you're supposed to do?

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  16. Oh my gosh---THAT was a great, fucking post! That's for the sore-cheeks-laugh!

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