Smells and tastes

Do you ever have a vivid memory pop up when you smell something? I get a specific feeling and memory when I smell Big Red gum, which my very first boyfriend used to chew continuously. I also get it, though it's not as strong a reaction, when I smell swimming pool chlorine, which reminds me of lots of good times as a kid.

I don't think I've had this experience with taste until yesterday, when we bought this Rice Dream fake ice cream...Vanilla Ginger Snap Chai or something like that. As soon as I put it in my mouth I had a strong memory of a book I liked as a kid. It was a Sesame Street scratch-n-sniff book, and this ice cream tasted just like Cookie Monster's cookie smelled. It brought back some of the sensations of being 7 or whatever age I was at the time I had this book...among them, I really liked that smell and remember wanting to taste it, but alas, cardboard doesn't carry flavor well.

Someone should come up with a scrapbook for smells and tastes. I think it's a better way to recall good memories than photos.

On a wholly different note: