Philly Smells

When Danielle and I went on our honeymoon to Orlando, FL, we decided that Orlando stinks. Specifically it smells like something I don't feel is an appropriate word for this blog, but that aside we were offended and disappointed. Walking around our resort, walking to the grocery store, and at the airport, Orlando smelled bad. Minnesota often smells nice, especially by comparison, but we were on our honeymoon so I think we deserved better. Objectively it was probably inevitable because of all of the vegetation mixed with the incredible heat plus rainfall in Florida...

Philly on the other hand smells terrible from all the people. The building next to ours, which we often walk past, has a constant stream of water flowing out from one of the window wells over the sidewalk and into the gutter. For some reason it always smells like stank whenever we walk by that stream, and last week Danielle discovered that the cause of both the stream and stank is that the window well is actually packed with garbage. So that is a great example, right in our neighborhood, of why Philly smells. 

We haven't been able to figure out why it smells especially bad when compared to other large cities, but some possible contributing factors we have hypothesized include: 1) the age of Philadelphia; 2) the size; 3) something about tastykakes; and/or 4) the 76ers. 

Walking down the street in the other direction this past week, we decided that every house must have had a raging party for labor day and filled up all their toilets with garbage so that they had to defecate in the streets. It smelled absolutely awful, and the boulevards were overflowing with party cups and pizza boxes, but the odor suggested contents much fouler and eviler beneath the surface. Sometimes we will walk by a restaurant or store and a pleasant smell will tease us for all of three seconds before we walk past the adjacent alley and discover where they keep their stank. Then that continues for several blocks until we are able to get back inside a building.

Even inside some buildings, like our apartment building, your nose ought to be afraid. Danielle has said that the smell on the lobby level near the bike lock-up and laundry rooms should constitute a cause of action for some type of tort. Danielle is still struggling to come to terms with her new-found identity as a law student, and that was an early attempt at a legal joke.

As in Orlando, I am hoping that this serious issue is attributable to the record rainfall in Southeast Pennsylvania recently, and that the fall will dry it up and winter will seal the odor in ice. If not, then I expect that Minnesota will know when we are coming home for Christmas by the rank scent. Unfortunately I am now at the end of the post and have not found a good spot for a pun based on the word 'olfactory,' but I wanted everyone to know that I have thought a lot about it. 

-Rory