Jasmin

I drive a company car. It's not my company car -- I don't work for the company -- it's one of two leased to accommodate my parents. But in the last three months I've come to think of it as my car. And that's not a good thing. I'm territorial.

Last month, I was involved in an accident in my father's company car -- the second one -- while driving it home from the airport after my father had gone. When he is not required in San Diego, the company reclaims my father's car, but while arrangements were being made to repair his, it was mine that the company called home. While tooling around in my father's car, I had no problem with that; but when mine was returned to me, the predatory instinct kicked in: someone's been steering in my chair!

What I noticed first and foremost was the smell. I am very sensitive to smells, and this was a strong one. Perfumey. Not at all acceptable. I surmised that it must have been a woman that had borrowed the car, and after I found a forgotten bit of concealer, it was confirmed. It had been a woman. And she liked her perfume.

On day one, I simply noted the offending odor, but by day two I was getting annoyed that it didn't seem to be fading. I rolled down the windows in an attempt to air the place out, but to no avail. By day three, I was disgusted. Did this woman pour the stuff on? I couldn't stand it. It was not only offending my nose but was also disguising a rather lovely new car smell. How rude!

She'd left a bit of tell-tale garbage for me, too, so by the fourth day I was concocting images of the woman who must have driven my car. They weren't flattering, these images of the water-guzzling harlot who splashed herself with come-hither juice and painted her pores in my cockpit. Shameless hussy, keep your eyes on the road!

By the end of the week, I'd collected some tell-tale garbage of my own and went about removing it. That's when I saw it -- a piece of cellophane stuck between the console and the driver's seat. More garbage. Lovely. Except... it wasn't garbage. There was something inside the barely opened wrapper... shaped suspiciously like a tree. A pine tree. A cardboard pine tree. You've got the image, but instead of the give-away pine scent distributed by the green version, this one was yellow and coated in "Jasmin." I removed it post-haste and left it to freshen the mail room.

Given a day to air out, the car smells much better now. And I've revised my opinion of the woman who borrowed it. I'm sure she's very nice. But why put an air freshener in a new car? Maybe she's a smoker....