One of the strangest phenomena you will encounter in the
United States is that of the Great American Nose. The American
Nose may look like yours and mine, but in reality it's not.
Something seems to have been left out of the American Nose. It
is incapable of degrees of differentiation of odors. Whereas
most of humanity is capable of smelling a wide range of odors,
the American Nose can smell only two - good odors and bad odors,
right odors and wrong odors. Of course, the American Nose prefers
good odors and right odors. It is quite virtuous, therefore. It
must have inherited all its genes directly from its Puritan ancestors.

After a careful study of the matter, I have come to the conclusion
that there are only three good odors, and that all the rest are bad
odors. The three good odors - artificial flowers, artificial lemons,
and artificial spices - are used to mask all of the bad odors. Bad
odors emanate from bathrooms, from garbage cans, from moldy things,
and most of all, from human bodies. All natural odors are bad odors,
as you can see, and there are hundreds of American products in the
three good odors designed to mask all the bad ones.

Wherever you find the Great American Nose, a hand holding a can to
spray, a deodorant to roll on, an air freshener to stick up, or a
cleaning solution to wipe on will not be far behind. Does the kitchen
smell like cooking? Spray it with great amounts of artificial spice.
Does the closet smell moldy? Fill it with odor of roses. Does a person
smell sweaty? (Sin! Sin!) Roll on quantities of deodorant with scent
of jasmine. Does the bathroom smell like a bathroom? Wipe everything
down with scent of lemon cleaner.

Pity the poor American Nose. It is really very fragile. Yet this
fragile appendage rules the American. Should the Nose detect bad
odors, you will hear the American complaining loudly, and very
shortly excusing itself from their presence.

You may think Americans are an independent lot, but they're not.
They can't go anywhere without extra bathroom paper, disinfectant
sprays and cleaners. I sometimes have the feeling that if the American
civilization falls into decay, it will be because the American Nose
could not tolerate the smell of it. It's remarkable to me that with
such a handicap as the Great American Nose, Americans have survived
this long. Leticia Lupinska.

(Excerpted from 25 Strategies: Reading Skills for Intermediate-Advanced
Students of English as a Second Language by Jacqueline Neufeld and Marion Webb.