Saints among us

Years ago when I worked in the old folks' home, one of my co-workers, Rita, a devout Roman Catholic, had some interesting ideas and beliefs. One of those beliefs was that if a person smelled something which could not be identified any other way, it meant there was a saint in the room. I am not kidding you! 

Justin and I had a mystery before us---from whence does the smell of bleach emanate? It was in my room, and we noticed mainly around my desk. He said it smelled like I do when I come in from the pool in the summer. But what was causing this?

I checked in my desk storage area in case my compressed air cans had a problem. Nope, they were good. Justin went around my room sniffing everything that could be sniffed---my comforter, blankets on the end of the bed, nothing to make a bleach scent. I changed the trash bag in case it was something in there, like a cotton ball with nail polish remover perhaps. Nope! I even picked up my foot stool from under the desk, a risky item to put to one's nose, but it was not bleachy. 

What in the world? It just started in the past couple of weeks, so it had to be something new to the room. I had recently opened and begun watching some DVDs I'd bought back in 2007 which came in a file cabinet-looking case, but they were odor free. It just had to be a saint! It occurred to me that perhaps it was the air ionizer which Nancy gave me that smelled. Justin had picked it up and sniffed it, pulled out the 'filters', but no scent there either. Hmmm...

Today, Justin told me that he did some research on it and determined the scent was, in fact, from the air purifier. The smell was the purified air! Apparently the way the machine works, changing the chemical make-up of the air, is what causes the air to smell more than clean. It smells downright sterile. 

We were at the table in Chili's with our group when he told me this so I had to relate what we'd been going through. I also shared the story of Rita and her unidentified scent meaning a saint was among us, his first time hearing this premise. Justin jumped in and said, "In your case it's the patron saint of bleach..." and we all laughed. I am normally a friend of bleach, like to purify things. 

I can't tell yet if the amount of dust in here is reduced or not. Perhaps it will be psychological if I notice less dust but the machine MUST be doing what it is supposed to do, right?  I will have to start sleeping with my door opened so the bleachy air doesn't burn my throat when I am sleeping. I could simply turn it off at night, I guess, to keep the saints at bay when I am sleeping!