Question of the Day

What smell commonly regarded as unpleasant do find appealing?

I seem to like a lot of smells most people find icky: Cigarettes, gasoline, the musty, stale, vaguely smoky smell that resides in vintage purses and on the pages of old books. I don't even mind skunk, from a reasonable distance.

I also quite like the smell of horse and cow manure—the latter of which, I should note, I have never smelled on factory farms (where it may be unpleasant), only on family dairy farms, where the grassy, earthy smell of hay- and grass-fed animals' manure I find to be quite agreeable. They are also smells I associate, respectively, with horseback riding and with visiting the dairy farm of a family friend in Upstate New York, both activities I have long enjoyed, so the scents have a nostalgic element to them for me that certainly adds to their appeal.

Pig shit, on the other hand, I find absolutely intolerable.