The nose knows.

Random fact about my family: we are nostalgia freaks. My Christmas present a few years ago was the entire collection of Betsy-Tacy books in hardback. Throughout my childhood (and most of my adulthood) ol’ Betsy Ray was checked out from either Coleman or Memorial Library and in residence on my nightstand. In fact, one summer when I was in college I went through Italy and Switzerland, and packed in my little carry-on was "Betsy and the Great World". The same library edition I read as a kid. It just would not be permissible to go on my own trip into the Great World and not take Betsy along.

So I was totally unsurprised when Baby Brother called yesterday with a delimma. There was some construction going on in his office and when he returned from his lunch hour the smell of the hallway knocked him flat. Yet there was something familiar about the slightly mildewy stench. Baby Brother was just being driven crazy trying to figure out where he knew that smell from, and all he could get to was it was something from when he was a kid.

I answer the phone to this question: “Did I have a He-Man figure that smelled like a skunk?” I’m embarrassed to say that this also sort of struck me as familiar. So we ponder this for a while and finally decide he was remembering the smell of the figures after you played with them in the bathtub and the heads got a bit slimy on the inside. Don’t act like it’s gross, I know your toys did the same thing.

Somehow, I could not stop picking at the idea in my head. We had missed something. So I googled He-Man and discovered the treasure trove of information at He-Man.org. I am always amazed and oddly excited at the lengths people will go to for stuff like this. But I needed exactly this information, so way to go, He-Man fans.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet STINKOR – Lord of Odor, whose Wikipedia entry describes as “humanoid skunk whose superpower is the ability to release a toxic odor from his body that renders foes immobile.” The toy's description mentions that the actual figurine is infused with skunk scent.

I don’t know what the heck is going on over at Baby Brother’s office, but I think we ought to look into harnessing his nasal powers for the forces of Good.


Photo from http://he-man.org/