When I was much younger -- eight or nine years old -- I spent several months staying with neighbours. My mother and I were entrenched in one of our semi-regular conflicts, and the neighbours, who had many times before shown kindness to me, offered to take me in for a bit. Maybe?

He wears a particular cologne, and the whole house smells like it. It's a nice smell. Even walking past, you'll often catch a whiff of it. I remember always smelling like his cologne when I was staying there. It seeped into everything. It's possible that I associate this laundry detergent with that time as well, but the cologne was so overpowering. Its claim to smell memory seems so much more valid than the laundry detergent's could be.

The smell is emotionally charged. It's from a significant time in my life, or event, or occasion. Staying there would qualify, although only barely. It's sexually charged. There's something (maybe only slightly?) erotic about the memory. Staying there would also, only barely, qualify.

I wish I knew what I smelled like.