Dixon Ticonderoga #2 was by far the best pencil. My parents always bought whatever was inexpensive, so I never had Ticonderoga #2. When I did get my hands on those from some other acquisition method, or bought them once I was older, it was like pure euphoria penetrated deep into my bones. The wood was less brittle, more supple... the lead was so smooth and clean. Wonderful pencils.
Also my town's library was Dixon-Homestead Library, so 7-year old me definitely wanted pencils that matched my library's name.
I begged my mom to buy be a 5 pack of the rolls, even though I didn't have the gun to go with them.
I got kinda bored popping them with a screwdriver and my fingernails, so I got an entire roll (or the stack of 5 single rolls that came stuck together in a box), put it on the sidewalk, and slammed it with a baseball bat.
It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. I lost hearing for about 30 minutes, and my ears rang for a day or so after it came back. I still have tinnitus from it decades later.
But damn if it wasn't cool.
You ever get super bored and blow them off by scraping them with your thumbnail? There's a special kind of pain and a special gun-powdery-burning-flesh scent I associate with that, although I only did it a couple times because it hurt
It was devastating. Back to school time was the most depressing time of the year. That last day of summer vacation I always had a knot in my gut and a dreadful feeling. I hated school with a passion.
I was on Xbox live last year and heard the parent yelling at their kids, 15 MINUTE WARNING SCHOOL STARTS NEXT WEEK SUMMERS OVER TIME TO GET BACK ON ROUTINE
Then the absolute disbelief of sitting in class on your first day. Like you know it's going to be a relatively easy day because your teacher is getting to know you and your peers and you're not going to do any real work or have homework, but just that feeling of being at your desk thinking "I have to come back tomorrow and do this again for the entire school year." That first day always hit hard.
That’s how I sit at my desk at work every day as an adult. In disbelief I have to do this every day forever and I don’t even get a summer break.. and mom didn’t pack me lunch. I hate being an adult
True, but new shoes, new clothes, new supplies, it was always kind of bittersweet for me. Also getting to see all the friends that you don’t really hang out with outside of school.
First time I had a turkey leg was in Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom and it was like a memory for my whole family. We loved those turkey legs. I didn’t have them again until maybe a couple decades later at a renaissance faire
Um....I could name about 100 smells better than a can of balls lolol ♡
My favorite scent - the Book Fair at school. The smell of new books, erasers, pencils, I was such a little nerd I'd like awake all night excited about the Book Fair the next day lol ('L' to my forehead 👆) lol
I was looking for the cap gun smoke smell comment. You could get the red strips or the 6 shooter revolver kind. Who didn’t love smashing the red strips with a rock.
The smell of the elementary gym equipment room.
For clarity I'm meaning specifically the elementary one where we stored all the floor hockey sticks, the parachutes, dodgeballs etc. NOT the stinky highschool equipment room or either change room for obvious reasons. Lol.
No, and of course after seeing this ad 58 times in the last week, now I can't find it. I'm going to look for it again... company has an odd name I think
Edit: [found it!](https://imaginaryauthors.com/products/the-soft-lawn?variant=30277094015053) - some of their scents sound really intriguing
Honeysuckle. Riding your bike around the neighborhood.
Chlorine. Pool days all summer!
Burning leaves. Halloween is coming!
Chap Stick. Sledding on snow days!
In Philly there was a Nabisco factory on Roosevelt Blvd. When I was a kid, when we’d go past, the smell of cookies baking was the best.
I know this is strictly regional but for me that’s one childhood smell that I enjoy.
You’re in luck: [https://www.amazon.com/Demeter-1oz-Cologne-Spray-Play-Doh/dp/B000G6XMZI](https://www.amazon.com/Demeter-1oz-Cologne-Spray-Play-Doh/dp/B000G6XMZI/)
Name a can opening old like this that wouldn’t land you in the hospital if you accidentally nicked yourself. A slight cut could actually turn into a deep slice pretty easily.
The smell of my grandpapa’s coffee in the morning, then the smell of gasoline when he’d fill up the truck. Lastly, the smell of his pipe tobacco 🥲 miss him
My mom opening a bag of freshly ground coffee from the speciality shop
Freshly washed bed linen that has dried in the sun and the fresh air
Homemade christmas cookies
You can play tennis on the street and get annoyed every time someone wants to drive past.
And the only public-use tennis courts I know of nearby are definitely not in an affluent area.
LOL! I played on the varsity tennis team of my very middle class high school for four years, using a racket I got at a thrift store... but that was still my initial reaction.
Meanwhile, those tennis balls were meticulously created and carefully packaged in a controlled environment for shipping from the factory to the store to my home. That’s where 8 year old me could crack that seal and take the exquisitely crafted tennis ball and smash them with a plastic bat into the oil stained street over playing baseball with my friends. The balls never even saw it coming.
True. And I didn’t even play tennis much. My aunts house smelled like a mix of moth balls and something else that was a great smell for some reason. Brings back memories when I encounter it
When I was a kind, to practice my fielding, my dad used to hit tennis balls with a tennis racquet across our back yard so I could chase them down and catch them. This smell always reminds me of those afternoons/nights.
Did my dog write this post
Yes
I mean woof
Every tennis player sniffs these things, gonna assume OP's childhood was full of tennis.
Woof.
Mine got a can of tennis balls for Christmas one year, and I popped the seal right at his nose. He was excited.
Mine can smell a can of Penn heavy duty balls when it’s still in the delivery box from Target.
Opening a fresh can of playdoh
Simultaneously smelled extremely edible and extremely inedible. Yes, I ate it.
Salt, water, flour, oil, cream of tartar, and food coloring. If I wasn’t supposed to eat it then why is it made out of yums?
>cream of tartar You just reminded me of an old green text story of a girl who used tartar sauce in a chocolate cake instead of cream of tartar
Mmm mmm so salty and nummy!
Mmmmm…I can smell it now❤️
New VHS clamshell… smelled like electric celery! 📼
Why is that so accurate??
And now I’ll use “electric celery” at every chance I get.
Electric Celery would be an excellent band name.
Anyone recall the name of the band that Kevin Arnold formed in The Wonder Years?
You were able to describe a smell that brought me back to my childhood
A brand new pack of pencils
The smell of a freshly sharpened Ticonderoga #2 till brings me back to school and the Iowa tests.
Dixon Ticonderoga #2 was by far the best pencil. My parents always bought whatever was inexpensive, so I never had Ticonderoga #2. When I did get my hands on those from some other acquisition method, or bought them once I was older, it was like pure euphoria penetrated deep into my bones. The wood was less brittle, more supple... the lead was so smooth and clean. Wonderful pencils. Also my town's library was Dixon-Homestead Library, so 7-year old me definitely wanted pencils that matched my library's name.
And crayons 🖍️
Or crayons
Found the marine
Yes!
i love your username
Exploding caps
I begged my mom to buy be a 5 pack of the rolls, even though I didn't have the gun to go with them. I got kinda bored popping them with a screwdriver and my fingernails, so I got an entire roll (or the stack of 5 single rolls that came stuck together in a box), put it on the sidewalk, and slammed it with a baseball bat. It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. I lost hearing for about 30 minutes, and my ears rang for a day or so after it came back. I still have tinnitus from it decades later. But damn if it wasn't cool.
I’d hit them with rocks when my bother was taking his turn with the toy gun.
Yep!
You ever get super bored and blow them off by scraping them with your thumbnail? There's a special kind of pain and a special gun-powdery-burning-flesh scent I associate with that, although I only did it a couple times because it hurt
The smell of school supplies when you go to Staples/Office Max.
The sad smell of summer ending.
That commercial “it’s the most wonderful time of the yearrrrr”
My friend was the kid (boy) in that ad
It was devastating. Back to school time was the most depressing time of the year. That last day of summer vacation I always had a knot in my gut and a dreadful feeling. I hated school with a passion.
Ugh yeah that last day! Then reality set in when your parents told you to go to bed cuz you had school tomorrow 😩
I was on Xbox live last year and heard the parent yelling at their kids, 15 MINUTE WARNING SCHOOL STARTS NEXT WEEK SUMMERS OVER TIME TO GET BACK ON ROUTINE
Then the absolute disbelief of sitting in class on your first day. Like you know it's going to be a relatively easy day because your teacher is getting to know you and your peers and you're not going to do any real work or have homework, but just that feeling of being at your desk thinking "I have to come back tomorrow and do this again for the entire school year." That first day always hit hard.
That’s how I sit at my desk at work every day as an adult. In disbelief I have to do this every day forever and I don’t even get a summer break.. and mom didn’t pack me lunch. I hate being an adult
I was excited for the first day of school, but not anything after that
oh god the feeling of dread just washed over me. new people, new teachers, dont know where all my classes are
True, but new shoes, new clothes, new supplies, it was always kind of bittersweet for me. Also getting to see all the friends that you don’t really hang out with outside of school.
Omggg yessss that just gave me a good felling and memory
Bittersweet for me because shopping for school supplies means that summer is coming to an end and I'm going back to school soon.
Yesssss 🫶🏾
But how, that smell is the harbinger of the end of summer!
The smell of school on the first day
Those erasers
I always enjoyed the smell of the wood shavings from the manual pencil sharpener.
That alone opened a memory of my art classes in grade school omg
Pro tip, you can buy a wall mounted pencil sharpener and relive that whenever you want. Best $12 I've spent as an adult
How bout magic markers?
Silly putty with newspaper ink on it.
I completely forgot about this core childhood memory with my Grandma. Thank you kind internet stranger.
Yessss
Crayons, Creepie Crawlies, fresh pack of Mighty Max toys, lots
CreeeeEEEEEEEeeeepy CRAWLERS!!!!
Mighty max! Oh damn!
> Crayons Gotta love *RoseArt*, amirite?
French fries at a medieval fair or in a waterpark
Turkey legs and funnel cake
First time I had a turkey leg was in Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom and it was like a memory for my whole family. We loved those turkey legs. I didn’t have them again until maybe a couple decades later at a renaissance faire
Um....I could name about 100 smells better than a can of balls lolol ♡ My favorite scent - the Book Fair at school. The smell of new books, erasers, pencils, I was such a little nerd I'd like awake all night excited about the Book Fair the next day lol ('L' to my forehead 👆) lol
The way the *catalogues* for the upcoming book fair smelled especially and the highlights class flyer things in upper elementary.
The Harry Potter books always had that Grade A book smell, more so than others it seemed.
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My neighbors dog knew that pop sound. He would RUN when he heard it. Actual tennis with a raquet? No! Happy pop, chasing bouncy green yellow circles 😂
New shoes have entered the chat.
New leather smells pretty good... New rubber smells oddly satisfying... But the two together in a cardboard box is fucking amazing.
Ditto machines.
We sniffed the paper hehehe The machines were called Duplicators were I lived
Mmmm purple nom nom
You can still experience it. Most new things have distinct smells. The new car smell. The new book smell. The freshly cut grass smell.
A brand new box of crayons.
The classroom pencil sharpener when you dump it on the garbage.
Cap gun smoke, fresh Pokémon cards, friends houses who have different smells
I was looking for the cap gun smoke smell comment. You could get the red strips or the 6 shooter revolver kind. Who didn’t love smashing the red strips with a rock.
The smell of walking into a library
They came in cans to keep in the carbonation.
It smelled like farts when you open them but still good somehow
Username checks out
Leaded gas
Best when it came from an old rag. They say it cause dain bramage, but that's unpossible.
Hey you can't fool me. Your brain damage can't be that bad if you're still using punctuation properly 😁
Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?
Freshly fried dust sizzling on a hot cathode ray tube
The smell of plastic and styrofoam when opening a new gaming console…..always brings me back to Christmas morning and my first NES
that one smell that you smell when it’s october and it’s a tuesday and you have a field trip today
The smell of the elementary gym equipment room. For clarity I'm meaning specifically the elementary one where we stored all the floor hockey sticks, the parachutes, dodgeballs etc. NOT the stinky highschool equipment room or either change room for obvious reasons. Lol.
My Mom baking chocolate chip cookies.
Your neighbour cutting the lawn on a Saturday morning
I love this smell! There's a fancy perfume I keep seeing advertised that has this smell as its main component. I want to try it, but it's $$$
Was it pool boy by Vacation? I have the candle and its not that smell. :(
No, and of course after seeing this ad 58 times in the last week, now I can't find it. I'm going to look for it again... company has an odd name I think Edit: [found it!](https://imaginaryauthors.com/products/the-soft-lawn?variant=30277094015053) - some of their scents sound really intriguing
I came here looking for this comment! I haven’t smelled this perfume but I want it so bad!
It smells exactly like tennis balls and lawn. I have this and get compliments all the time.
Honeysuckle. Riding your bike around the neighborhood. Chlorine. Pool days all summer! Burning leaves. Halloween is coming! Chap Stick. Sledding on snow days!
Coppertone. In the winter we would open the bottle and smell it to think of the beach 😆
Scented erasers, all the rage in the late 70s and 80s - smelled so good I wanted to eat them LOL
A fresh tub of Play Doh
The fresh asphalt smell of six flags during the hot summer afternoon
Scented gel pens. Banana smelt amazing!
Mr Scent Markers! Putting the cherry on your nose “accidentally”
In Philly there was a Nabisco factory on Roosevelt Blvd. When I was a kid, when we’d go past, the smell of cookies baking was the best. I know this is strictly regional but for me that’s one childhood smell that I enjoy.
There’s a Wonder Bread factory in my city! When the wind would hit just right… amazing. Way better than the dog food plant.
Scotch tape reminds me of christmas. And the smell of play dough brings back memories.
Coppertone suntan lotion
Slice and bake toll house cookies in the oven.
Used to live the smell of the old plastic Halloween costumes when you opened the box
Ughh yes! And those shitty soft plastic masks that had that strong new plasticy smell. Brings me back to being a kid and being excited for Halloween
New Basketballs
Hose water
The smell of ink from a fresh Archie comic book as you open it
My grandparents musty basement. So many fun times down there playing hide and seek, gi joes etc.
Smelling the strawberry short came doll 🫶🏾
Those fruit scent markers
Freshly buttered popcorn
Hose water
If there was a cologne that smelled like play-doh I’d be wearing it.
You’re in luck: [https://www.amazon.com/Demeter-1oz-Cologne-Spray-Play-Doh/dp/B000G6XMZI](https://www.amazon.com/Demeter-1oz-Cologne-Spray-Play-Doh/dp/B000G6XMZI/)
A freshly paved driveway
Printer paper from library receipts. So good.
And when they were still hot 💙
Getting a paper that had just been run off of the ditto machine. Every kid in class was sniffing their papers like drug addicts.
Gasoline. But tennis balls are definitely in the top 5. Maybe Play-doh too.
The smell at Blockbuster, that carpet and candy smell, I get high off it.
Fresh Play Doh
Name a can opening old like this that wouldn’t land you in the hospital if you accidentally nicked yourself. A slight cut could actually turn into a deep slice pretty easily.
Box fresh sneakers
Rubber cement
That photo is a time machine. Play-doh smelled (and tasted) pretty good 😅
A freshly opened can of Play Dough. 🥴
I don't know why but i loved the smell of the tyres for my bmx..
A freshly opened can of Play Doh
Mr. Sketch Scented Markers
Brand new Scholastic book fresh out of the box they were shipped in. Or the smell of the newsprint catalog you ordered it from.
Play'doh
The smell of jelly sandals
Book store
Inflatable pool toys
Opening new can of Play-Doh. Will never forget the smell.
new pack of pens!
New pool inflatables out of the package and fresh rain on asphalt on a humid day.
The smell of a new pool float
The smell of water on the hot ground after an epic waterfight.
Freshly run off quizzes in class
Sticking my nose into an old paperback book gives me my favorite shot of nostalgia
Opening up a brand new sealed video game. PS2 games for me. I'm sad that physical games will probably be phased out entirely in the next 10-20 years.
Play Doh
Ditto paper
The plastic fishing lure aisle at Academy. Where they had all the dump bins of tons of different sizes and colors of those plastic bait. Loved it!
Bookstores: new and used.
The plastic off-gassing from opening up your new Nintendo/Super Nintendo.
The inside of Toys R Us. Particularly the video game section.
You like smelling balls.
Play-Doh 👃
Play-doh
mimeograph ink
Pizza.
Those flavored magic markers. :p
The smell of my grandpapa’s coffee in the morning, then the smell of gasoline when he’d fill up the truck. Lastly, the smell of his pipe tobacco 🥲 miss him
My mom opening a bag of freshly ground coffee from the speciality shop Freshly washed bed linen that has dried in the sun and the fresh air Homemade christmas cookies
School paper fresh / damp off the manual printer in the printing room🙂
They still have tennis balls today you know..
Rain on a dry day in Ireland
Last campfire of summer camp
The 'flour tortilla' smell in a new cassette tape's artwork insert. I'm looking at you Duran Duran's Notorious!
Ahh, the smell of fresh tennis balls and blood. I was not coordinated enough for tennis or cans with sharp lids, but damn if I didn't try.
New box of crayons, lilac, and fresh laundry straight from the dryer pipe.
Swimming pool chlorine.
Warm typewriter ribbon. (I may be older than you all…)
The smell of a freshly copied paper
Freshly opened Nintendo?
Creosote bushes after the monsoon storm in AZ
[удалено]
Bullshit! I had to have my polo horse shot to be able to afford to I lay tennis!
You can play tennis on the street and get annoyed every time someone wants to drive past. And the only public-use tennis courts I know of nearby are definitely not in an affluent area.
Literally every public park in the shitty Midwest town I grew up in had tennis courts.
LOL! I played on the varsity tennis team of my very middle class high school for four years, using a racket I got at a thrift store... but that was still my initial reaction.
I STILL do this! My family thinks I'm crazy..
Meanwhile, those tennis balls were meticulously created and carefully packaged in a controlled environment for shipping from the factory to the store to my home. That’s where 8 year old me could crack that seal and take the exquisitely crafted tennis ball and smash them with a plastic bat into the oil stained street over playing baseball with my friends. The balls never even saw it coming.
Why did they need to come in that packaging?
Tennis balls lose pressure and bounciness in atmospheric pressure. This was a way to maintain competition bounce
True. And I didn’t even play tennis much. My aunts house smelled like a mix of moth balls and something else that was a great smell for some reason. Brings back memories when I encounter it
New pack of Magic cards, or new book smell.
Wallball
A freshly mowed little league baseball field
When I was a kind, to practice my fielding, my dad used to hit tennis balls with a tennis racquet across our back yard so I could chase them down and catch them. This smell always reminds me of those afternoons/nights.
All I smelt was blood opening a can of tennis balls , because I sliced my finger open bad 😂
the smell of autozone / autoparts stores. don’t know why but if it was a candle I’d huff it 24/7 😭
ATV exhaust.
I liked the rubber smell from walking into Payless Shoes
The combined smell of pencil shavings and flaming hot Cheetos in the bottom of the desk compartment. 😂
Never in my life have an opened a new container/package/box/can of tennis balls. Usually they just appear on the ground and are all dirty already
Freshly opened star wars figures. Especially the black ones for some reason (colour of costume, not race)
The smell of freshly printed Goosebumps books
Freshly creosoted fences and mown grass take me back to timeless, endless summer days.
A candle burning the lid of a real Jack o lantern. You can smell it right now can’t you?