A few weeks ago I was at the grocery store, and my checker was a sweet, indie-rocker type with blond, shaggy hair, a fully-tattooed forearm, and a pierced eyebrow. As she moved her arms to load my grocery bag, a waft of Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue drifted over. My heart leapt. I’m not a huge fan of Light Blue, but I loved smelling perfume in public. “You smell great!” I said. “It’s not too much?” the cashier asked.
I live in a neighborhood in Portland, Oregon with probably the most vegans and biodiesel-fueled cars per capita anywhere in the world. Running through the neo-hippie is a strong vein of rocker, too, leading to dread-locked white girls with scarlet lipstick, lunchboxes as purses, and bottles of kombucha. The older generation of Portlanders has a higher portion of ex-Grateful Dead followers supplemented by more financially secure Portlanders driving Priuses, designing gardens of native plants, and adopting babies from China. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t live anywhere else. It’s just that most of these people don’t care about perfume — or worse, they actively dislike it…
