The Stink of Failure

Writing prompt: Describe a smell that evokes a particular place.

Burned Popcorn

Whenever I smell burned popcorn I think of the first hair salon I visited after moving to Ann Arbor, Mich. Seeking a new hairstylist is always a traumatic experience and after moving from Detroit to Kalamazoo to Prague to San Francisco and now to Ann Arbor, you'd think I'd have a better grip on the process.

I'd read all the magazine tips for finding the perfect stylist — not that I needed the perfect stylist, I just wanted someone who could play up my hair's natural blonde as opposed to its natural gray. The gray had established a beachhead at the crown a few years before and now threatened total conquest and I needed a stylist who could help me fight the good fight.

So I read the magazine tips and they were predictable: ask your friends, ask women on the street with good hair, interview candidates. I found such suggestions ridiculous; I had exactly one friend in Ann Arbor at this point and she had terrible hair.

As for the second suggestion, well, that created a fascinating social experiment. Seriously, I think UC Berkeley researchers should take this up. I found the most friendly-looking women, those most likely to cheerfully respond to my request, had the worst-looking hair, while the beautifully coiffed ladies strolling down State Street looked ready to smack anyone foolish enough to address them.

So I adopted the time-honored tactic of walking down Main Street and picking the salon with the nicest sign. They brought me in and introduced me to Stephanie, a cheerful, heavyset stylist with a nose ring and a henna rinse. All was well until the faint odor of burned popcorn entered the room. Stephanie froze.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I think it's burned popcorn," I piped up, ever the helpful one, although it was obvious what the odor was.

"The new girl did it," whispered the neighboring stylist.

"The eyebrow girl?" Stephanie asked. A quick, grim nod.

"I don't understand that," Stephanie said, dabbing some potion on a lock of my hair. "You have to stand by the microwave while it pops."

"Everybody knows that," said the other stylist.

The smell grew stronger and the culprit, a young Asian girl, scampered out to apologize, but the stylists were having none of it. "You have to stand by the microwave," Stephanie said. The eyebrow girl looked ready to cry.

And that's why, although Stephanie created the perfect soft buttermilk highlights for my hair, I never returned to that salon.