Pavlov's Dog Ain't Got Nothing On Me

When the computer lights up, Killer has to write.

As I get older there are more and more items I find that illicit a subconscious response. I am going to include two examples. One, I can blame on someone else creating. The other, can only be attributed to myself. Both are odd and, coincidentally, both involve fruit.

When it comes to laundry detergent I like to shake things up a bit. I want to try new scents with different brands. The only rule is: There has to be a corresponding fabric softener with the same scent. I am not an animal. I don't want my underwear to smell like a bastard combination of Fresh Breeze Tide and Mountain Spring Gain.
This led me, the other day, to purchase an un-before smelled scent called, "Joyful Expressions", from Gain. I got home and was about to wash my clothes, when I got my first whiff. It smelled like apple shampoo. Normally this would not be an issue, but my sister has always used a bizarre apple scented shampoo to wash the family dogs. Which, of course, resulted in a mad-house of apple and wet dog scented pooches racing and barking around the living room in a freshly cleansed fit of joy. This would, invariably, make it very difficult for me to enjoy watching Jerry Springer. I developed an intense dislike for those moments, but did not realize until the moment I opened the "Joyful Expressions" Gain, that my subconscious had linked the whole event to that smell. I most certainly could not wash my clothes in this detergent.

I can not drink wine. I am alcoholically cultured, and only drink microbrewed, or home brewed beer. None of this changes the fact that I am disgusted at the smell, taste and thought of wine. It is linked back to my 16th year of life when me and my best friend saved up our fifty dollar pittance for placing Domino's Pizza door coupons on area houses. (Actually the vast majority ended up in a dumpster, but that is another blog.) We took our combined fifty dollars and waited outside a shady gas station until a person with sympathy for youthful tomfoolery wandered by and would buy us some booze. The request was simple, "Here is fifty bucks, go buy us some Boone's Strawberry Hill." This gentleman, being an apparent literalist, comes out with eight bottles and no change. We decided not to be gluttons, so we let him keep two and kept the other six for our own purposes. Four hours and six bottles of sweet, cheap strawberry flavored "wine" later, much puking was under way. Much, much puking. Lovely wine flavored puking. Since then the mere smell of wine makes me nauseated.

My brain is working over time to protect me from unpleasantness. I guess it does not trust me to self regulate. It is probably right.