Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde.

Formaaaldehyde.

That's a fun word to say.

It is, however, not a pleasant smell to smell.

It's a smell that transports me back in time to my high school frog dissection.  That smell!  It sticks in your nostrils threatening never to go away.  In fact, I can smell it now just thinking about it.  I am now thinking about fresh baked cookies.  Fresh baked cookies.  (deep inhale)  Fresh baked cookies.

But it's formaldehyde's pungent odor (not cookies) that accompanies my sweet husband home from anatomy lab.

My hard working med student is currently studying the Gastrointestinal Tract.

This week he got to cut open his cadaver's bowels and examine all the inner workings.  

Yikes.

We, together, have established that he's the naturally more considerate one in our marriage relationship, and, true to this nature, he has developed the kind habit of changing immediately out of his formaldehyde-reeking scrubs when he comes home.  Scrubs which I, in turn, toss into a hot washer.

Until we have children and I'm washing throw up, urine, and poopoo out of clothes, blankets, and sheets, I figure I'm getting at least a little bit of practice in with cadaver juice and formaldehyde.

I am genuinely very grateful for my washing machine.

What was it like to be married to a doctor or a coal miner or a butcher in the 1800s, before the modern washing machine existed?  Can you imagine??

source

I suddenly have an urge to make cookies.