Enthusiastic would be the last adjective on earth to describe me. As such, I've never been accused of being a cheerleader, team player or a writer of online product testimonials. However, I must gush about Citrus Magic's Fresh Linen Solid Air Freshener.
After dining with friends at Austin's La Perla restaurant on Congress, upon driving home I became violently ill at a red light from presumably food poisoning or a rare food allergy. Like those spray nozzle paint ccontraptions that promise even coverage, I coated the dashboard and front seat of my car in gazpacho soup, clams, fried oysters, creamed corn, lobster grits and hush puppies. Upon arriving home, my husband valiantly sucked up the chunks with a vacuum while I curled up in a ball on our tiled bathroom floor. The next morning, we were leaving for a 1-week trip out of town and had no other choice but to leave the car to stew in 100+ F degree heat in our driveway. It was a crock pot of puke au jus.
One week later, we returned home and I could barely open the door to the car without having a gag reflex. I drove it to the car wash with all the windows down, requested a $65 interior car detail and invented a story about a small kid that had the nerve to puke in my car. The small kid won out over the fictionalized frat boy one-night stand character because my Hyundai Santa Fe boasted no greek letters, Longhorns football insignia or stray baseball cap.
The wild cherry car mat shampoo they used masked the smell and days later, when the cloying sweet scent fog retreated, it was back to vomitville. I tried your typical air fresheners. Febreeze aerosol which reversed all my husband's Prius global warming good doing with one spray. Stick 'Ems which didn't stick. Even California Car Scents with that 1980's soda flavors like "Grape" that reminded me miniature cans of cat food. Nothing worked and my husband was already writing epitaphs for my car. We imagined this is how death smelled if death was a rich, elderly woman at a department store cosmetic counter. Decay with a spritz of perfume at the wrists.
Resigned to driving iaround in funk and with little hope left, my last buying impulse was the Citrus Magic Fresh Linen Solid Air Freshener. It looked like a plastic fire alarm toy with an equally juvenile slogan -"Magically absorbs odors!". I'm convinced my underwhelmed nature overcompensates for the overuse of exclamation marks in everyday life.
After leaving it in the passengerer seat for 2 hours, I couldn't detect a single historical olfactory strata of stomach bile. My car now pleasantly smells like a public laundry mat and dryer sheets straight out of the box.
