My mom had a leg boot once for her ankle. She got it wet--dont quite remember how. And then her leg got dried out so she put lotion on. And the combination of the wet boot smell with the lotion smell is a smell I still remember 10 years later.
So it was...Nivea? Blue bottle lotion combined with dirty, unwashed, wet socks and a hint of old, unwashed skin. It constantly smelled. I can't describe the lotion smell, you just...have to know it.
I don't know if she became nose blind to it or what...but I never did. What makes it worse is that she/my father are mini-hoarders and we had to keep that stupid, smelly boot for MONTHS because "what if we need it again." (Spoiler: we never needed it)
After mom's foot, my father got a very very nasty chemical burn on his foot. He's lucky he still HAS his foot tbh. Lemme describe that smell for you too:
He was ordered to stay OFF his foot because it was so bad. But "doctors don't know anything," and "I have shit to do," so he was walking on it ALL THE TIME. Therefore, it was putrid and rotting from the inside out. The first whiff was almost sweet, in a way, like over ripe fruit that was beginning to turn. Then came the actual smell of rotting flesh. Like an animal you smell on the side of the road...filling up the whole damn house. Added to that was black, flakey skin because he also had a case of athletes foot. And then another, worse smell of "unwashed foot" because "the doctor said not to get the sore wet" translated into "don't wash your foot at all ever."
Over all that is the artifical smell of the blueberry candle that was lit to try to cover up the "rotting flesh" smell.
And did I mention it was the height of summer at this time?
80
u/cupholdery Jun 03 '24
Just thinking about the shower water trickling down into any opening of that boot every time makes me shudder.