Smell

Dear Harry: My situation has been kicking around since my mother-in-law died in 2010. My husband was her only child, and he is deceased. Her nearest kin are my three children. My mother-in-law left a home and some small savings accounts. There was no will. I went to City Hall and went through the process of having myself appointed as administrator of her estate. It was very easy to get the banks to transfer their accounts to the estate. The house was a bigger problem. I did get the title transferred to the estate.

A sludge plant whose stench was once the unwelcoming smell motorists got anytime they crossed the Platt Bridge near the airport is the perfect metaphor for the malodorous deal involving City Hall insiders that led to the facility's replacement.   A less fragrant process to turn human waste into fertilizer and fuel has cleared the air of that stench, but the smell left by all the influence-peddling that preceded the deal yet clings to Mayor Nutter, who did what he could to inject some integrity into the contract but could have stood on higher ground morally had he rejected it outright.

When psychologist Johan Lundstrom decided to test whether there really was an "old people smell" he got good news and bad news. Unfortunately, he found, people can tell the difference in body odor among young, middle-aged, and old people. The good news is people aren't very good at telling which odors came from which age group. Also on the bright side: Women smell no worse as they age and men get nicer smelling after 75. Lundstrom, who works at the University of Pennsylvania and the Monell Chemical Senses Center, said he decided to investigate this matter when giving a recent talk at a retirement home near Philadelphia.

DEAR ABBY: I'd like to respond to "Hurting in Virginia Beach, Va.," who complained that the smell of mint chewing gum triggers her migraines. I chew gum on planes because it helps reduce sinus pressure, thus preventing my own headaches. I am also a former smoker, and gum-chewing is a healthier alternative to tobacco. If "Hurting" explained her situation, I would certainly abide by her request to not chew, although I would find it uncomfortable to go without for long. I recommend she carry several packs of non-mint gum in her purse.

Question: I have been with my girlfriend for 21/2 years. We moved in together 11 months ago with the understanding that if we felt the same after a year, we would plan marriage. I am a home brewer of beer. Besides enjoying the stuff I make, my dad (who died three years ago) and I did it together, and it brings back happy memories. My girlfriend complains every time I make a batch (every two months): She says the kitchen is always dirty afterward no matter how hard I try to clean up, and the smell of the hops bothers her and lingers for days.

OCEAN CITY, just about the happiest place in America, according to a recent poll, received a stinking, rotten reminder yesterday that death is always just a tide away. Initial reports suggested that a large whale simply was beached, setting the stage for a horde of hope-filled hearts to rush into the surf and push the magnificent beast off into the Atlantic. There would have been cheers and tears mixed with salt water and celebratory beers later in a neighboring town that sells alcohol.

"You can't get to heaven on the Frankford El. " - from the song "Frankford El," by the American Dream, 1970 Almost every day for five years, I passed a bar under the Somerset station of the Market-Frankford El. Pat's, I think it was called, and it was no cream-puff bar. It was more like what was called a "bucket of blood" in my grandfather's day. It had a big, plate-glass window lit by neon beer signs and a glowing, green shamrock....

Sometimes a show is so shockingly bad right from its very first scene - say, for instance, Rob! , which debuted on CBS this week - that you wonder how it ever got made. Who at the network thought a sitcom about a timid Caucasian runt who marries into a big, noisy Mexican family was a good idea? Here's how I imagine the pitch meeting went: "Gentlemen, I think the script you hold in your hands speaks for itself, but we also have a big star attached. Rob Schneider. " No reaction.

NEW BALTIMORE, MICH. - A Detroit-area woman is suing an auto dealership, claiming that her new SUV smells bad because it once contained a corpse. The Detroit News reported Monday that Margarita Salais sued Suburban Ford in Oakland County Circuit Court. The suit claims that the dealership failed to disclose that the car had been stolen three times and once held a body. The lawsuit says that Suburban Ford told Salais that the bad smell in the 2006 Ford Expedition came from a dead animal.

I can't wake up and smell the coffee. I can't smell the roses, either, the ones that I bought from a man who wrapped them in crisp white paper and that shed their aromatic petals onto our dining room table. I am not speaking in metaphor here. I'm talking about a total olfactory wipeout. It happened four years ago. One day, the world was my snuffbox: Ginger sputtering in olive oil, peppermint gum, pinot noir, the cat's litter pan, my daughter's Tea Tree-scented shampoo.