There's Something about that Smell...

Call me crazy, but there's something about the smell of a tool shed. Or a garage, if that's where you store your lawnmower and such.

I'm not talking about a mechanic's garage, or a squeaky-clean, so-polished-you-could-eat-off-the-floor kind of shed that, miraculously, some people manage to maintain.

No, not THIS kind of garage. Who keeps a garage this squeaky-clean??

No, I'm talking about a good old-fashioned GARAGE. An old-school SHED. You know the type: filled with garden tools and gas cans and potting soil and bird seed and boxes and paint cans and maybe a sled and a wagon and hoses and hoes and rakes and maybe an old bike and a lawnmower. Always a lawnmower. And maybe in the case of the garage, not the shed, just enough room for a car. Barely.

When I open the door to my garage, or when I walk into someone else's garage or shed that falls into this category, my first response is to take in a deep breath. Slowly, and then maybe one more. There is no other smell like it that I have experienced – and it's intoxicating... a blend of things like soil, peat moss, gasoline, and cut grass.

Always some gasoline containers in a true garage or shed. Nothing adds to the intoxicating ambience like a little gas...

Usually some miscellaneous chemicals and cans of "stuff" in there, too...

It's like an instant breath of summer for me. Many times, it goes beyond the smell. The experience flashes me back to my childhood and our garage at 306 Swarthmore. We didn't have a shed, so everything went in the garage. Somehow, Dad made sure there was still always room for one of the cars. The garage was where we went to find things, often delightful things: rope if we needed it for something. Sleds. Our wagon. Wood. Just small piles of wood, which you never knew when you might need, but thank God it was there when you did. Spiders were there, too, and cobwebs, and while that was kind of creepy, it also added to the mystery of this fascinating place that embodies childhood and summer and adventure for me. To this day, I can't open my garage without the smell flashing me back to easier summer childhood days. Never fails to bring a smile to my face.