Rain

Challenge two ~ Rain.

The first incarnation of my impression of rain was awful. Smelled of stale urine with a touch of grandma's lilac talcum.

I toyed a bit with the type of rain I created. I called it 'Montana de Oro' after a particularly awful camping trip to the coast about 11 years ago. Just south of the town of Morro Bay, on the southern arc of the bay, is a state park nestled in a little cove surrounded by coastal pines and scrub brush-lined walking trails that are packed with some very unhappy Pacific rattlesnakes.

We spent an entire weekend in mid-July at this picturesque location, watching the sun go down over the ocean, chasing waves and laughing at our kids' crazy antics. The blight, and you know there's always a 'blight' on any vacation that's almost too good to be true, was the truly heinous scent wafting from the public facilities. Wouldn't have been so bad if we could have gotten away from the smell, but the scent filled the little cove from stern to stem, and mingled with the smells of camp cooking, pine and sea.

Using the facilities was a nauseating experience. They weren't dirty, per se. The park staff came in twice a day to scrub them out with bleach and toss the garbage. The problem lay in the type of toilets they were. The building itself was permanent -- a concrete slab with wooden walls, sheetrock, porcelain toilets and sinks. No, it was the flushing apparatus that was in question. There wasn't one. This beautiful bathroom was nothing more than a glorified port-a-pottie. A huge pooty-filled tank hanging under the toilet is where all the lovely essence originated. I remember using a wet rag over my mouth and nose and trying to pee one-handed -- that was fun.

So, yeah, Montana de Oro -- not where you want to spend your vacation if the caca sucking truck hasn't been in for a while -- and definitely not a perfume you'd want to wear.

I've chosen to reformulate. And I may still call it Montana de Oro just for giggles.