As some of you may know, I’m a busy (read: poor) college student who has two jobs. One of them is serving delicious lattes and the other one is being the Fitting Room Lady at a discount retail store.

Being the Fitting Room Lady is a big job. It means that I’m stuck behind a counter for 4+ hours, counting tickets, making sure people don’t steal, making faces at children, keeping said children from running into the fitting rooms stalls, picking up hangers… etc. My other big duty is that I’m in charge of Lingerie. Sometimes someone will take pity on poor, stationary me and bring me a rack of underwear and bras to ticket and put out on the floor, (when people do this it is AWESOME, because being the Fitting Room Lady is BORING) or even give me something else to do, like put number stickers on shoes, or organize the itty bitty size nubby things that go on the hangers (NEVER AGAIN).

Last night I came into work, started working, and another girl delivered to me a giant rack of hot pink thongs. They were frilly. They were lacy. They were thongy.

Here is a confession: Until I had my First Real Life Grownup Boyfriend, lingerie was the most terrifyingly embarassing section of the entire store. Not joking. Going bra shopping was a dreaded experience, not to even mention the unspeakable terror of having to buy… underpants. My mother would always drag me by the ear into that section and begin the painful process of pulling out pairs of underwear in my size that were frilly, lacy, sexy… my face would turn beet red as she pulled out a pair covered in lace and I would refuse to even entertain the thought of trying on, wearing, or purchasing anything like that. I normally settled for the old standard: the Hanes 3 pack of white, gray, and navy blue. Or stripes. You know, nothing too scary. Nothing too sexy. Nothing that required me to even think about underpants.

Now, I’ve grown up and changed and am even, at this point, interested in buying frilly lacy underthings, but still, the sight of a giant rack of hot pink frilly thongs is a bit of an affront to my eight year old self:

8 yo me: “What. The. H-E-Double-hockeysticks?!”
Me: “it’s cool, it’s cool. Don’t worry, girl. You don’t have to try these on.”
8 yo me: “B-but I have to touch them.”
Me: “Just chill. Okay? We’ll reminisce about when we got to wear Little Mermaid underpants later, okay?”
8 yo me: “Okay.”

So, we were cool. Right? I walk up to the giant rack of hot-pink thongs and was assailed by a scent-nay, a smell.

Stay with me kids, this doesn’t get too gross.

The smell of maple syrup.

Here’s another fun fact about me: In my past life job, I was the chief candy chef at the Oregon Zoo, which meant I would spend 8 hour days making fudge. Pans and pans and pans and pans of fudge. Go ahead, snicker. Get all of the jokes out of your system, because I made some damn fine good fudge and would come home reeking of sugar and butter and maple syrup. (Maple fudge with walnuts. Try it sometime!)

So I’m standing in the middle of a crowded department store, facing a rack of hot pink thongs and I’m suddenly smelling and craving maple fudge. This was when my eight year old self began having a panic attack.

8 yo me: “What the heck, grownups? I don’t even want to KNOW.”
Me: “Now, now, um, don’t freak out. It’s probably… I don’t know. We’ve always been kind of weird about scents… I doubt it’s something to do with anything like se-”
8 yo me: “Do not say that word.”
Me: “Um. Oookay… it’s probably just an accident. Or like, we’re strange. Let’s go ask someone else.”

So we did. And they agreed. And we asked a random dude what he could smell. And he said “Maple syrup.” And we asked our boss, and she said she was craving waffles.

So now we come to the question, “Why in the (h-e-double-hockeysticks) would hot pink lacy frilly thongs smell like maple syrup?!” I leave that to you, internet*.

*Advanced research (ie: asking my friends who are known to have multiple fetishes) has indicated that this isn’t a common/documented fetish. Is it kind of like how dudes associate bacon with sex? Or something. I don’t know, I’m just really freakin’ confused.