Thoughts on scratch'n sniff news

By T.W. Burger

It is often true that we do not take full advantage of the technologies available to us.

Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the scratch’n sniff panels.

You know what I mean. You open the little flap in the ladies magazine in the doctor’s office and the air currents carry to your nose some complicated scent with a fanciful name like "obsession," or "feverish," or, for the downscale market, "B.O."

Surely we can do more with this.

I had this thought today, while tramping around the fringes of a local landfill with a brace of our photographers.

The camera guys were there toting their usual clutter of black boxes with all the complicated dials, switches and lenses. When I am forced to use one of the damn things I feel as though I’m trying to take pictures through a Rubic’s Cube.

Never mind. Where was I?

Anyway, there we were. Chris was crouched, in a position my own physician would probably not recommend, focusing on a colorful glimmer of leachate oozing out of the ground.

The smell was, well, interesting; funky, with a slightly industrial underscent, like a robot’s diaper pail.

"The pictures would have a lot more impact if we could capture the smell to go with them," said Chris.

“Scratch’n sniff!" I yelled. "That’s the answer!”

Ha! That would add a dimension to print news that the folks on television couldn’t match, by golly.

Think of what scratch’n sniff panels would do, for example, for a story on a seepy old landfill, or a feature on a donut shop, or on skunks.

Think what it would do for the arena of sports reporting. You could read a story about the double-header and, scratch, scratch, smell the hot dogs and beer. Locker room interviews would certainly take on a whole new dimension.

Scratch’n sniff panels would keep a report on the dairy cow judging at the farm show from becoming an absolute flop.

Gun buffs could enjoy reading about a black powder match and, scratch, scratch, fill the den with the smell of fire and brimstone.

There would be downsides, of course. Ads for donut shops might provide tense moments for those who have problems dealing with authority figures when, scratch, scratch, they are suddenly and inexplicably surrounded by police officers.

As with any technology, there would be opportunities for abuse. One shudders to think what horrors some of the purveyors of pornography might perpetrate on us. I’m not sure the Freedom of Smell is covered by the U.S. Constitution.

Heck it must be, considering how many bad smells seem to emanate from our assorted capitals. I think if reports of some of the recent reported  campaign hijinks came with scratch’n sniff patches, I’d just leave’em alone.

 T. W. Burger was raised in town and graduated from Athens High School in 1967, then worked as a driver of everything from fork trucks to garbage trucks and concrete mixers, has been an apprentice mortician and ambulance attendant.

Terry is now a semi-retired journalist who resides on the banks of Marsh Creek, just outside of Gettysburg, Pa.