The French got to be very good at perfume because they were very bad at bathing.
Over time, they have become quite skilled at disguising odors with aromas. A quick walk through the city of Paris reveals battles of fetor and fragrance everywhere. On the Metro, a Frenchman keeps his brie warm in his trousers, and in so doing masks the foul smell of those trousers with the delicate, playful bouquet of the beloved cheese. Done well, it is an exacting act of compassion that, like a ballerina, dances from nose to nose, tickling each with a perfume-dipped wand of smelltacular effervescence.
Just like a ballerina.
These people - these French people - even scent Paris's river, the Seine, once a year.
Why do they do it? Because they're French.
That's an odd business, though, perfuming the Seine. Have you seen the Seine? You certainly haven't touched it, as you'd be dead. Like mimes, it's not one of France's more boast-worthy assets. There are some things in the world to which we do not want to draw attention, and the Seine is one of them. Filling it with perfume is just the sort of thing that's going to get people looking at it and thinking about it. "Francois! Look! Soom-eh-one has gone and poot zeh purfyoom een zeh soower!" Scenting the Seine is like dressing a piece of poop in a tuxedo, putting sparklers in its pockets, and taking it on Oprah. You're effectively saying, "Look what I have that you don't want. No, I mean it. LOOK."
One would expect the people of such a lovely smelling country to be happy all the time, smiling at the rosy nose tingles while they join arms and go on strike for the third time in a week to demand larger riviera villas for their government-mandated six weeks of paid vacation each year. I know I would.
But, no - they're not. Despite being viewed by the rest of the world as a shiny, happy, clappy people, the French are actually the largest consumers of antidepressants per-capita of any nation in the world. Maybe even in the whole galaxy. I wonder if aliens get depressed. If they do get depressed, how do they deal with it? Do they talk about what's bothering them? Do they even have mouths? If I saw an alien in my yard, I'd lure it over to me with a candy bar, grab it by the tentacles, take it inside, cook it, and eat it. Alien with a side of alien in alien-sauce. Or I'd sell it on eBay. I dunno. This is one of those I'll-cross-that-bridge-when-I-come-to-it things.
How did the French, masters of odoriferous neutralization, come to be so unhappy? How did they go from having great parties to trying to get the Olympic Committee to recognize nihilism as a sport (one from which they would have been disqualified for use of philosophy-steroids)?
They played with fire.
And they got burned.
The French think they know everything, but they don't. They know neither what number I'm thinking of right now, nor where they made the extreme biffage that landed them in this fine little how-do-you-do.
But I do know: "6" and "Ignorance of the power of odor on the mind and body," respectively.
Smell is a powerful sense. Unlike other senses, such as vision, you can detect odors with it. Try as you might to "see" the dewy soft fragrance of that jar of kim-chee... actually, if it's kim-chee, there's a good chance that the smell is visible, but for all other things, it is not.
The French didn't think about this when they dumped Chanel No. 5 into their river.
When fragrance wafted up from the river and into French people, it didn't go alone. The Seine passes through a few industrial towns and smaller cities before arriving in Paris. Although it is little more than a creek at the source, it's augmented all along the way with the tears of French children whose faces are blackened with the soot of the smoke of the machines in the Perrier factories where they're forced to put bubbles into water purchased by rich people. Do you have any idea of how many bubbles there are in each bottle of Perrier? I lost count once at ten. Over ten bubbles in each bottle, and these kids have to shove each one in by hand. I'm sorry to hit you with this awful truth, but there it is.
The Seine: a river of children's tears. "Seine" is French for "a river of children's tears." "The" is English for "the."
You sad? I'm sad.
In dumping perfume into the Seine, they were dumping perfume into a flood of sadness. They were also, unbeknownst to them and their funny little hats, creating a monster. The perfume bonds to the tears by way of a complex chain of carbon atoms created with a mechloid catalyst enzyme protein emulsifier that breaks down the triple-helix nucleotards at the hydrogenous terminal peptides, forming what we in the field of chemistry call a "buddy" molecule, which is basically two different substances - in this case perfume and tears - making chemical love.
Normally, you couldn't "smell" sadness, but when you have a perfume/tears buddy molecule, your olfactory system is "fooled" and lets everybody in to join the party. The olfactory system bypasses cortical processing and goes straight for the emotional center of the brain. This path allows tears to be processed as olfactory stimuli.
In short, the French have all but made sadness into a nasal spray. All that's missing is the cool bottle that squirts the liquid into your nose. That'd be a cool thing to see in the nasal spray section of your local pharmacy: "Sadness the Nasal Spray... by France."
The point here is that if you aren't paying attention, you can accidentally depress an entire nation with perfume, some child laborers, and a creek.
How could this have been avoided?
I'll tell you how: aromatherapy.
Like string theory, cold fusion, extraction of zero point energy, and Judaism, aromatherapy is a science.
Some people think aromatherapists are just a bunch of hippies peddling wishful thinking in the form of pungent greases, but this is not true! Many aromatherapists are new-agers.
But, be they hippies, or be they not, they all be trained in the SCIENCE of aromatherapy. Like doctors, they have to go to school for almost a month before they're allowed to practice. They learn many things in school such as distinguishing between peppermint/spearmint (harder than you think!!!), and how to say in reference to any oil, "This one cures cancer." In cases where a patient's condition is resistant to aromatherapy therapy, the aromatherapist is trained to distract the patient with a huge bill. "This'll take your mind off that pesky AIDS," they say.
Aromatherapy is all natural. Chemotherapy and antiretroviral drugs are not, and are, therefore, bad. Western medicine is all about chemicals made in laboratories. In being all natural, aromatherapy, unlike those chemicals, never interferes with the progression of a disease. Nature is allowed to continue unabated. As a bonus, people can smell you from two miles away, and assume the existence of a gigantic sage bush in the area. See how that's better? I do. I really do.
All aromatherapists are smart. You'd have to be to be able to not cure diabetes with dandelion oil. Just the other day - this is a true story - I was in my favorite cafe when I met an aromatherapist. She overheard and then interrupted a good conversation I was having with a friend about perfume. Being generous with her time and knowledge, she started talking at me about aromatherapy without asking if I cared. She thought that my interest in fine fragrances somehow translated into an interest in soaking my nipples in a nightshade unguent until they fall off, saving me from ever having to suffer the pain of breastfeeding.
Here's a snippet of our conversation:
Her: Peppermint gets into your blood from the skin in ten seconds and cures headaches in as little as six to eight hours.
Me: Really?
Her: Yes.
Can't argue with that!
...or can you?
Me: How?
Her: Because.
Wow! You can't argue with that!
Still, I think I'm smart, so I wanted to try some aromatherapy out on myself. That way, I'd have PROOF of aromatherapy.
I told her about a problem I was having:
Me: I've been feeling tired lately. Do you have anything for making me feel more awaker?
Her: Are you carrying cash?
Me: No, but I can get some.
Her: OK.
[Twenty minutes later]
Me: Sorry - the nearest ATM was farther away than I thought. What's this going to cost?
Her: What do you got?
Me: Forty bucks.
Her: More.
[Twenty minutes later]
Me: Here's another eighty.
[She sighed and took the measly wad of cash]
Her: Here's some ragweed oil and a guano candle.
Me: A what candle?
Her: Guano.
Me: What's guano?
Her: It's something you make candles with.
Me: Are you sure? Because I thought it was-
Her: HEY - who's the aromatherapist?
Me: Uh... you are.
Her: You are, what?
Me: Um. You are, ma'am!
Her: That's better. I almost had to cast a black spell on you that would have made your aromatherapy not work.
Me: Oh, no!
Her: You got lucky. So, to cure your fatigue, go home, smear the ragweed oil on the walls of your bedroom, turn the heat up to ninety, set the guano candle next to the bed, light it, and go to sleep for at least eight hours. When you wake up, you won't be as tired.
Me: Wow! Mercy me! Goddess bless!
Her: Who's the aromatherapist?
Me: YOU is! YOU dah aromatherapist! Yeah, dawgg!
Her: Ha ha. Now get outta here, you little rascal!
I tried the aromatherapy solution that night, and it almost worked. I tried it again the next night, but this time I took a sleeping pill right before bed. I slept for just over eight hours - like the aromatherapist told me to - and felt GREAT the next day.
All thanks to aromatherapy! Feel the magic! Smell the science!
I have now demonstrated that aromatherapy can be proven to exist. If you doubt me in my assertions, you most likely have skipped over a portion of this paper.
So c'mon, everybody - let's say it together:
Why aromatherapy? BECAUSEOTHERAPY!
Ha ha! Have a great day!
Bye!