A Childhood Revelation from the Stink of Post-Asparagal Pee

Today I had asparagus for lunch. You can probably tell where this is going and if you have no patience for stuff with no practical point you might as well quit reading.

Since, a.) I'm one of those lucky phenotypes that can both produce the enzyme and detect the odoriferous result of Asparagus-eating, and b.)have an endless fascination for the gross idiosyncrasies of the human body, this was a profound experience.

It was like the second time I smelled pot. The memory of the aroma, so ingrained and evocative it instantly transported me back down its own, dark neural pathway to the first encounter - opening my parent's refrigerator as a toddler and wondering about that tin box of stuff that looked like Oscar the Grouch hide, wreaking with the all the damp richness of Mother Earth herself. Only years later, at the second coming in the Bogus Basin Ski Area parking lot, did it click in my mind the nature of the beast whose path I'd previously crossed.

Ah the power of the subconscious. But here today, the warmth of the smell wafting up from the urinal did the same thing. Back to childhood I was flung and there emerged this disturbing visage...


Stinkor(!), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe's token skunk-faced villain, who's ostensible benefit to the Snake Mountain contingent was the wretched smell of his loins and its debilitating effect on the forces of good.

Turns out the 'stench of evil,' or, more accurately, its stripped-down, suburban-safe Mattel-made iteration, is really just the small of urine after a hearty helping of asparagus.