mum's the word

the french countryside offers up a cornucopia of wafting aromas worthy of a king's ransom. as me mum used to remark when i was but knee-high to a grasshopper, "now breathe in deeply children." my brother and i never figured out how a skunk in full fight or flight could elicit the identical response from her. i have long since ceased asking why and resign myself instead to the reality that mom's standards of olfactory excellence rest on a different plane than the rest of we earthlings! :^}