I have a funny/scary perfume story...
I send postcards all over the world (and receive them, too, but that's not part of this tale). I belong to a website called Postcrossing, and they assign you an address to send to whenever you're ready. Most of the addresses come with a profile, where the person mentions what kinds of postcards they like and don't like. And if you thought all postcards are the same, they are not. I had no idea...
One day I had a couple of addresses, one in Canada and one in Poland. The lady in Canada said that she didn't care what kind of postcard you sent, but that she would appreciate it if you sprayed it with your favorite perfume and told her a little about it and why you like it.
I don't really have a favorite, but I had a bottle of something nondescript laying around and I sprayed her card with that. It wasn't super great, but it wasn't "Greasy Grimey Gopher Guts," either.
I sprayed it a few times, because I thought, "This postcard will be traveling around for a while (it takes FOREVER for postcards to get to Canada) and I want it to still smell nice when she gets it."
Then I wrote out the other postcard, stamped them both and dropped them in the big blue mailbox at the post office, I got there in time so they wouldn't have to sit overnight or anything.
About a week later, I got confirmation through the Postcrossing system that my postcard to Poland had arrived. The person who received it wrote a little note, asking if I knew why the postcard smelled so strongly. She asked if that had happened when I sent it, or somewhere along the way, because that was really unusual. I was sort of embarrassed, but I told her the story and apologized. A lot. I apologized a lot.
And then I started to worry. The scary thing is that those postcards didn't sit around together at my house after I sprayed the Canada-bound one. I literally finished them up, stamped them, and dropped them in the big box. So, it's unlikely my postcard to Poland was the ONLY other piece of mail that arrived at its destination reeking.
Not just from the time in the drop box, which clearly didn't take long at all, but all the nearby pieces that were sorted and put on transport to Canada. If the hour they sat in the drop box was enough to stink up a postcard enough that flying all the way to Europe and going through the sorting system there didn't air it out, I feel sorry for everyone on Canada Postcard Receiver's route.
The best part? I got confirmation a while later than my purposefully stinky postcard had arrived up north, and she didn't say a word about it. Usually people write something, even just a little "Thank You!" unless they don't speak English well, which she clearly did. Not a word.
I picture her opening the mailbox, getting hit by the Wall of Stink, seeing who it was from and thinking, "Dammit U.S.!!! You're the reason no one can have nice things."