I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I am practically a detective. I watch a LOT of the ID channel and I have seen almost every episode of 48 Hours and Dateline. When it comes to true crime, there is very little I have not witnessed from the comfort of my recliner. I often lament the waste of this talent I possess. I could be out in the community fighting crime, but my skills have yet to be called into action. Such a waste.
Well as it turns out, I did use my detective skills here in my own home a few years ago. The mystery began with a strange scent that began to emerge from my teenage son’s bedroom. The scent was not particularly bad. It was somewhat spicy and a little artificial. It didn’t smell like dirty clothes or mildewy like his hunting and fishing equipment usually smelled. This smelled like nothing I had ever smelled before.
Being the top-class detective that I am, I immediately formed a theory. My theory was that the smell was coming from a vaping device. Why? Well, I didn’t know what a vape smelled like and this smelled like something I had never smelled. Put those two together and I had solved the mystery. But, like any good detective, I needed evidence. I knew that if I just accused my son, he would deny vaping and I had no proof. I needed proof.
Gathering evidence had to be a top-secret mission. I could not tell my husband. He is not a good detective. He would have just asked my son right then and there if he was vaping. That is no good. We had to have evidence. So I had to be stealthy. I decided the best plan of action was to catch him in the act. I started with noticing when the smell was the strongest. The weird smell was definitely the strongest when my son was in his room with his door closed. He was clearly vaping in his bedroom, in my house, with me RIGHT THERE! He was brazen all right. The weird thing was that his truck did not have the weird smell. I would sniff it as soon as he got out of it (and was safely out of sight). No smell! His clothing also did not hold any of the smell. I would sniff his clothing when he left his room. No smell. Vaping is so much different than smoking!
Now that I had it narrowed down to the location, I simply had to pop into his room when he was in there with the door shut and surprise him. That should be easy, I thought. Oddly enough, my son didn’t even lock his door. He was so defiant that he did it with the door even slightly ajar sometimes! Unbelievable. Clearly the vaping was killing off brain cells by the second. I had to act fast. My first few tries were not a success. I crept down the hall and flung open the door, and there he was, on his phone, looking at me like I was a crazy person. I tried many more times over a two week period. The problem was that sometimes I forgot to have a reason thought up before I flung open the door. So when I was suddenly standing in his room and he said, “What?” I just stood there looking at him like a deer in the headlights. I think he was beginning to question my sanity. He never stuffed anything anywhere or seemed nervous, but his room always had that dreaded scent!
After that second week, I was really getting tired of the pop-ins, and I needed a new crime fighting plan. I needed to do a thorough room search. The problem was that I was never in the house alone. I worked all day during the week, and when I was home, so were my kids. Well I just happened to get lucky enough to get the flu at the end of that second week. I was laid up in bed for several days. After I started feeling better, I stayed home from work one more day just to rest and make sure I was fever free for 24 hours. That day was a week day!
As soon as everyone left, I was ready to do a search. I decided that the best way was to just use my nose. I started at one end of the bedroom and just started sniffing like a bloodhound. I sniffed high and I sniffed low. As I came to the end of the first wall, I got close to where he kept his hunting and fishing equipment. The smell got stronger! Aha! I was on to something! The smell was definitely stronger down lower to the ground. I sniffed around all of the bags and boxes. None of them contained the smell. The smell seemed closer to the wall actually. I looked up a little. NO. NO! This could not be. This could not be what I had been smelling for three weeks.
On the wall, in the electrical outlet, was what I had in every room in my house. It was a Bath and Body Wallflower plug-in. It was all coming back to me now. I had purchased a winter variety pack back in January when I had a coupon. I had really liked the Snowflake one and the Warm Vanilla one. But the Cozy Sweater one had a weird little zing to it. I thought I’d just put that one in my son’s room. It was a rather masculine smell and he wouldn’t mind. Crap. Could this be the culprit? I removed it from the outlet and took a big sniff. Yep. Vape. Holy crap. This is why the local authorities had not been calling on my services! I took the plug-in and removed the Cozy Sweater scent and put in a Frosted Cupcake scent just to test my new theory. I closed my son’s door and came back a few hours later. I opened the door. His room smelled like a bakery. Mystery solved.
I went to Bath and Body Works this week to pick up my favorite holiday scents. I did not pick up any Cozy Sweater scented items. If you like that scent, I do not mean to offend, it just brings back bad memories for me. Memories of lost career in detective work…
