It's interesting the way memories work. They say smell is the most evocative and one of the last senses to go. Smells remembered bring up sights remembered, sounds.
When I was six, maybe five, my father and I walked into the local pharmacy to get some mundane item. I held Dad's hand. As we entered the store, the pharmacist looked up and said "Hi there," in an enthusiastic tone of voice. "Hi," answered my Dad, just as enthusiastically.
"I wasn't talking to you," said the pharmacist, a man we had known for years, "I was talking to him," pointing to a man who had come in behind us.
Was there a smell, not that I can recall, but the feeling of deep humiliation, a word I did not even know, came over me at the time, and for years, I cringed ever time that scene played itself out in my mind. Shame, red corpuscles rising to the face, a sense of being less than, unworthy. My instinct was to turn tail and run. Like my puppy Babboo cowering under a chair when pursued by the larger dog Hanson in his puppy class.
Dad, laid low by the words of a pharmacist, not particularly hostile words, but dismissive words, my Dad dismissed and not even important enough to warrant a greeting by a tradesman. More than empathy, a personally felt rebuke to myself, even though I was not addressed.
What happened next I don't recall, but I'm guessing Dad made his purchase and left. Was he suffering the humiliation of his tiny daughter? Was there a history between this man and my dad, that made him not even say, "Oh Hi Bill, I was talking to Joe, there, but good to see you." Would that have made all the difference? Or would the shock of the "mistake" made by my Dad linger anyway, even if they pharmacist recovered his own equilibrium.
Funny, I never felt antipathy toward the pharmacist, just a sense of shame for my dad, myself.
The sense of deeply felt emotions, even ones unnamed and never felt before, are stronger than the strongest smell.
