the clerk smiled as she saw the same nut pick up a personal size grocery basket and head down aisle two. she smiled because periodically this guy would return with a basket full of glade lock and hold room freshener and deodorizer. it's a deodorizer that works on the same principle as a bug bomb. simply push down on the button and it fills the room with a scented fog. the man would buy only about five or six cans at a time. he'd been coming in for about five weeks now. sometimes he would come in twice a week. he seemed like a normal guy. he was kind of balding in his mid thirties wearing a black leather jacket. and he was always so damn dusty something soft about his features. it looked like it was makeup but it was just dust. he paid with a twenty and said thank you and left.

when the man returned home he took the glade from the worthless little plastic sack. he placed one on the rug, one on the end table, one on the window sill, one under the TV, and one on the air conditioner. this might seem unusual except for the fact that his entire apartment was just filled with them. every room on every surface. he figured he had about sixty of them in all--each one's nozzle poised at the ready. he sighed and opened a beer. he started to push down the lock and hold buttons on the canisters, slowly filling the room, working his way from the dining room into the den. each room filling with a multiscented fog: desert bloom, evergreen, misty rose, fresh lemon, regular and unscented, pot porrouri, wild oak, petulia, ocean mist, musk, hazel wood, irish nights, sandal wood, rain forest, country kitchen, natural prevention?, orange blossom, indian summer, and holiday candle. calmly he sat on the couch, spilt his beer, and closed his eyes.

Copyright: SCHUBERT MUSIC PUBLISHING INC.
Writer(s): KURT WAGNER