the fragrance of apple

This weekend I got some new stuff for my computer, which occasioned going into the Apple Store a few times.

Almost everything in that place is perfectly calibrated. The decor combines blank modernity with fulsomeness. The gadgets are salivatingly available and fiddleable. The geniuses at the Genius Bar are so perfectly varied in gender and ethnicity they could be from the ads rather than real life. Perfectly varied in every way but one: they all hew to the same unwavering standard of hipness; each one is the cool nerd, the confident geek, the semi-popular friend who will be friendly to everyone.

I say almost everything there is perfectly calibrated. There's one aspect of the Apple Store that hits me like a heatwave every single time I enter it, and cannot possibly be intended. It's the smell. The fragrance of the store isn't a glamorous fragrance of luxury merchandise, or the clean non-fragrance fragrance of high-tech; nope, it's the unmistakeable smell of massed human flesh. Texans don't recognize the smell of the subway, but anyone who's spent time on one will immediately know it.

Why is this? Other places in the mall buzz with activity, but you don't get that sour meaty wave anywhere but this one place. Maybe it has to do with the ventilation system you need for a room full of computers and pads and pods? I just don't know. It's a mystery. Have you ever noticed it?

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