The sweet smell of excess
Being just this side of ancient in the eyes of some, I am reminded this holiday season of the lyrics to “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas.” Written in 1951 by Meredith Wilson, who went on to even bigger fame with “The Music Man,” the song is a compendium of references that people younger than 40 probably won’t recognize.
For example: “A pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben.” Many today may think this is a reference to members of the Proud Boys or other militia groups who have shown up, armed to the teeth and dressed in military style, to protest certain government decisions during the pandemic. But “Hopalong” is a reference to Hopalong Cassidy, a cinema cowboy popular when I was a kid. A “pistol that shoots” likely was a cap gun. I had Cassidy boots and a pair of his pearl-handled revolvers, which I wore slung low on my 5-year-old hips. The boots lasted until I jumped off the back porch on to my imaginary horse and twisted an ankle. The pistols became part of a large collection of replica firearms that I had almost until I became a teenager. It was quite an arsenal.
Despite this, I have never owned or fired a real gun, and I have no desire to do so. These days my homicidal tendencies are assuaged by playing video games in which I, as a sniper, shoot Nazis and Commies. And by voting.
But I digress. The main purpose of this column is to point out how extremely bored adults have become during this pandemic. Otherwise, why would Hasbro be marketing Play-Doh for adults?
Cologne and perfume makers spend millions on TV commercials to make you think an adult woman smells like actress Natalie Portman running down a beach or an adult male like Robert Pattison riding in an elevator with a woman. But the Chinese toymaker has rolled out a “Grown Up Scents” multipack including six, 4-ounce containers of pliable goop that offers decidedly different ideas about what scents appeal to adults.
These scents are “Overpriced Latte” (coffee); “Mom Jeans” (clean denim); “Spa Day” (floral); “Lord of the Lawn” (fresh-cut grass); “Grill King” (smoked meat); and “Dad Sneakers” (leather – not, thankfully, sweaty feet).
What, no “overheated rhetoric?”
All this talk about “adult scents” may make you wonder what, exactly, regular Play-Doh smells like. You’re in luck, because Hasbro answered that question in 2018, when it patented the smell. Original Play-Doh’s smell is “a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough.” That’s too complex a definition, I believe.
This is better: “I love the smell of Play-Doh in the morning! Smells like … daycare!”
Exactly why Hasbro thinks we need Grown Up Scents is anyone’s guess. Yes, Zoom meetings can be boring. But squishing Play-Doh off camera while you talk? Do you really want your fellow Zoomers wondering what you’re doing with your hands? And does the world really need another ashtray – especially one that smells like smoked meat?
But if you are nonetheless intrigued by the concept of adult Play-Doh and can’t wait to start making grass-scented snakes or denim-scented dinosaurs, don’t expect to find Grown Up Scents under your tree in 2020. According to news reports, shipments are backordered until January on Amazon.
Smells like … disappointment.