The Strawberry Letter: I Can Tell By The Smell

Subject: I can tell by the smell

Dear Steve and Shirley, I’ve been married for almost 40 years. I have a 38 year old son that has moved back into my house and my husband is overjoyed to have a running buddy. They are out from sun up to sun down on Saturdays and I was cool with it at first, until one of my son’s friends approached my husband and I at the grocery store recently. Her name is Muriel and she’s got a small restaurant that a lot of single men and women hang out at, eating, drinking and carrying on. I didn’t know that my husband was hanging out at Muriel’s until I smelled her. She smelled like she had been in the kitchen and then sprayed cheap body spray over the grease smell in her clothes. That is what my husband smells like when he comes in late at night with our son. I asked her how things were going down at her restaurant and she said things are going great and looked at my husband. I stayed tight lipped until we got in the car. I asked if he’d been hanging out at her place and he said it’s a place for our son’s friends, not an old man like him. His clothes sure do smell like he’s been to Muriel’s a few times and he even had a little of Muriel’s fragrance on his shirt before. He couldn’t possibly be messing around with Muriel because she is not a petite woman. He’s 5’9” and Muriel is a tall woman. I could not get the truth out of my husband nor my son. My son said he hangs out there sometimes, but his dad is never with him. I asked him where his dad is, while he’s hanging out at Muriel’s and he said he didn’t know. I am too old to be driving by Muriel’s, looking around for my husband. If nothing is going on, why does he smell like a café? Why won’t they tell me the truth?