Smells Like Teen Spirit

Today's writing prompt:  write a scene that involves the scent of a teenager.  You decide what that means. Here's what came:

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I almost forget what it’s like to be a teenager.  Gone are the days of 16 Magazine, Friday Night Videos, acne, slouch socks to shield my thick ankles, baggy shirts to disguise my quickly changing body and Jovan Musk permanently embedded in my skin to hide profuse sweating.  I was a tidy kid, respectful, didn’t talk back to my parents for fear of a back-hander and I did well in school and was proud of it, quick to rub my friend’s noses in it because when you’re a kid, everything is a competition, right? 

I am reminded of these things when I enter my 13 year old niece’s bedroom.   If I could take you back in time to my teenage bedroom, you’d see my bed centered in my room, brass headboard, girly linens, a million tear-stained pillows to throw my dramatic face in when things didn’t go my way, walls papered with posters of 80s icons, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Michael Jackson, Madonna, INXS and everything in its right place.  The deal was I wasn’t allowed to hang my posters unless my room kept clean at all times and I kept my grades up.

Entering Holly’s room is a literally an enter at your own risk situation.  When I think of younger teenage girls, I imagine soft and vibrant contrasting pink hues, fuzzy stuffed things, pretty jewelry, fashionable clothes, perfume, and diaries with little skimpy locks, palates of cheap make-up, maybe One Direction and Pretty Little Liar posters.  It’s fair to say that Holly’s room is a science experiment.  Opening the door was an immediate struggle.  A mountain of wet bath towels hindered my entrance into the hazy dim lit room, “Holls, are you in here?”

“Over here,” she says shooting her hand up from behind a stack of school books and other junk that is supposed to be her desk, the one I passed down to her from my trendy teenage boudoir, “doing my math homework before soccer practice.  Are you gonna come?” 

I am aghast at the smell that stings my eyes and offends my nose.  What the hell is that smell?

“Of course I am.  Finish up your homework, dinner is almost ready and then I’ll drive you to over to the field.”

I couldn’t risk being exposed too much longer; the odor would have ruined my appetite.    I take my seat back at the kitchen table where my sister Lara is preparing dinner, “What is that pungent odor in Holly’s room!?

She half laughs and then scowls, “Let’s see, probably a combination of dirty dishes, half eaten things, soccer cleats, wet towels, the dollar store rip off of Davidoff’s Cool Water perfume and a month’s worth of filth, sweat and farts.”

“I don’t understand.  You leave her room like that!?”

“You know, my daughter is a lovely girl.  She’s bright and focused on her school work and on the soccer field, she’s sensitive and for the most part she’s responsible but the truth is she’s a slob.  And, she’s thirteen now, I refuse to pick up after her.  If she wants to live like a miscreant so be it. ”

“It smells like something died in there.  I almost fell over.  I couldn’t believe the mess in there, the piles of stuff.  There’s no floor!”

“I am constantly on her to clean her room telling her that if her father or I go in there fishing dirty plates out from underneath her bed or find creepy crawly things under a damp bath towel, she’s in trouble.  She’s soon due for another major cleaning spree, I know, it’s disgusting.”

“I am almost positive Jabba the Hut lives in there with her.  I am just flabbergasted.  I’d expect it from a teenage boy, but Holly!?”

Lara placed a crisp colourful salad in the middle of the dinner table and poured me a glass of wine.  “Teenagers are soooo much fun.”

I took a gulp, “A barrel of monkeys apparently.”

“Smells like one too!” 

**

Oh, to be young again.

Happy Monday!

In propinquity,

Nic