Vacation in a jar

     I have a jar of hand cream on my desk. It's officially coconut lime scented, but I like to think of it as...

 vacation in a jar.  

     The first time I put this stuff on my hands at work, the woman I shared an office with looked around, sniffing, like a bloodhound on a scent. "Ooohhh - what is that? That smells good." She said.

"Here, it's hand cream. Have some." I offered. She slathered it on and walked a round smelling the backs of her hands for the next 10 minutes.  When friends came into the office, I offered my tub of hand cream by way of greeting. "Hi - here, Smell this," I said to each friend as he or she stopped in. The reaction was always the same.

Yum.  

     I didn't care that it was so thick and slippery I couldn't grip my pen well enough to write...my mind was on vacation with each sniff.  Pretty soon I was just opening the lid of the jar and taking a quick sniff without actually applying the hand cream.  Sometimes you just need a quick pick-me-up without the mess and hassle of a whole moisturizing indulgence.  Feeling the pressure of ten hours worth of work when you only have two hours to complete it?  Close your eyes and take a quick, furtive sniff of coconut lime.  Immediately, it's as if you're sitting on a tropical beach, slathered in suntan lotion and holding a margarita in your hand...  You know, minus the sand in your bathing suit.

     Lately, though, I'm noticing the results I'm getting from my vacation in a jar are not quite what they've been on the past.  The scent seems to be waning... Or maybe it's me.  Now one sniff only seems to get me as far as Central Florida.   I thought the fragrance was getting old until a coworker of mine, whom I have successfully turned into another sniffing enthusiast, came up to my desk and said,

"Hey... Where's your vacation in a jar? I need a short vacation." 

     I took the jar out of my desk drawer where it had been for several weeks of the summer. Here. I handed it to him.  He unscrewed the lid saying,

"Ok... close your eyes... Ready to go to the tropics?"  

He stuck his nose a few scant inches from the goo inside the jar and inhaled deeply...

"Ahhhhhhh, I just went to Jamaica. 

Here. 

Take a sniff," 

he said, so I did. I suppose I should be changing to some fall scented hand cream soon, but I'm not sure it would be this much fun.


     Does anyone else out there have a scent memory in a jar?  Please share! :-)