Last night, I got a new car. (A BMW 328 hardtop convertible.) When you get a new car, you want it to smell like a new car, so I waited while the dealership detailed the car again. I texted my wife to see if she’d like me to pick up her and our children for a drive. She texted back, “Sure.” About half an hour later, the car was ready, I did a final inspection, got the guy to link my iPhone with the car, then drove off.

It wasn’t too long before I was in Burbank picking up my wife and kids.They got in and I demonstrated how the hard top folds and slides into the trunk. I knew this would impress my wife; children are never impressed by anything any more. We’re driving around for a little bit, and my son, in the back, asks if we can put the top up. Of course, because it’s 7 p.m., it’s late November, and it’s actually cold in Los Angeles — or at least as cold as he thinks “cold” is. So I put the top up. Now we’re driving to my office to pick up some things I need and that I left there when I went to pick up the car. I start to notice something.

“What’s that smell?” I ask. “Is that my car?” Because now something smells very much like engine failure, or a forest fire, or both. Is it inside? Outside? All I know is, it’s all I can smell.

“That’s us,” my wife says. “Dietrich was making ramen noodles in the microwave but forgot to put any water in.”

“He almost burned the house down,” my daughter chimes in.

“Did not!” the accused calls out.

Now the stench is serious. I can barely breathe. I lower the windows. It doesn’t help. I drive home and head into the house, and sure enough, the entire house smells like Smokey Bear’s worst nightmare. My wife makes both kids scrub everything conceivable, while she takes the offending microwave oven outside and sandblasts it with radically dangerous kitchen solvents. (Hours later, outside, with a cold wind blowing all around it, it will still reek of bad campsite.) I run upstairs and open every door and window to try to vent the house — but, with visions of having to have every article of my wardrobe dry-cleaned, I close my walk-in closet door.

This morning I get up and find that the house still smells ashy. All this from one little ramen noodles tub microwaved with no water. Which really leaves me wondering just what’s in those ramen noodles, and in those containers. Then I think about my car. My new car. With the new-car smell. I go outside and get in. Oh, it’s got a new car smell all right — like someone’s been burning leaves inside, like someone has torched the Hindenburg all over again, and all the ash fell right here. To add insult to injury, it also rained. All night, and most of today. So now I’m thinking of getting my new car, my freshly detailed new car, detailed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.