Smell of Cabbage

[Meg Demeranville]

Susan Fox-Davis wrote:
> This well-known aroma is connected with magic outside of the Harry 
Potter corpus:
> 
> "At some time in the recent past someone had decided to brighten 
the ancient corridors of the University by painting them, having 
some vague notion that Learning Should Be Fun. It hadn't worked. It's
a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully 
the colours are chosen, institutional décor ends up as either vomit 
green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance 
pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, 
corridors painted in those colours always smell slightly of boiled 
cabbage-even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity."
~Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites


Susan, I read this and just had to laugh. You just described my 
summer house perfectly. Back when it was built, the priest who 
furnished it used only what he could get donated from the local 
Catholic hospital. Consequently, the house was for many years, 
nicotine yellow downstairs, vomit green upstairs, with surgical 
appliance pink trim and unmentionable brown painted wood floors. And 
those are quite hard colors to cover up. I think it took three coats 
of paint on the walls and four coats of battleship grey on the 
floor. The ceilings still have spots of paint in those lovely 
colors. And all the hospital salvage beds are either brown, green or 
pink, complete with cranks and chart holders. And we don't seem to 
be in a hurry to change that. 

But the house doesn't smell of boiled cabbage, only spoilt seafood 
and rancid hotdogs. Maybe I just don't remember the odors other than 
that. Or the seafood and bait combination was too powerful.

Is it really 1:30 in the morning? Eek!

-Meg

Read the untold story of life as a first year medical student at:
As The Scalpel Turns - http://www.livejournal.com/users/megd/