Why Have I Started to Smell Like A Frito Corn Chip?

I’ve been noticing something for the past few weeks. I smell like Fritos.

Not after eating Fritos. Not near Fritos. Just as a default condition of existing. I’ll be sitting somewhere, not doing anything corn-adjacent, and I’ll get this whiff and do that thing where you look around the room trying to find the source until you can’t avoid the obvious anymore.

I stopped a medication recently. Maybe it’s working its way out of my system. Or maybe stopping it let my sense of smell come back and I’ve apparently always smelled like this and nobody told me. Both of those options are unsettling in different ways.

I did some light research — not Google, I refuse to Google physical symptoms, because that path ends at 2am and a terminal diagnosis — but I looked into it enough to confirm it’s apparently a real body odor thing. Which, fine. But here’s what’s weird: it comes and goes. I’ll take off a sweatshirt, get the full corn chip hit, throw it directly in the wash. Then I’ll forget to wash it right away and go back to check — and nothing. No smell. Clean sweatshirt. So either I’m imagining the whole thing, or the smell only activates under certain conditions I don’t understand, or my sweatshirt has developed a coping mechanism. I genuinely don’t know.

I’m not sweating noticeably. I’m not eating any differently. It just sort of shows up. Like a corn chip apparition.

Now here’s where this gets oddly political. We have a man running this country who is, by any objective visual assessment, an enormous Cheeto. Orange, processed, aggressively bad for you in ways science is still documenting. And I’ve developed an apparent sympathy smell. His corn-adjacent cousin has taken up residence somewhere in my biology. I didn’t ask for this solidarity. I want no part of it. But I also can’t rule it out as an explanation.

I’ll be honest — I feel for the guy a little. He’s spent his whole life putting his name on things. Buildings, hotels, steaks, a university, an airline, a fragrance, golf courses, the Bible apparently. If the historians are right about where he’s headed in the rankings — and multiple serious presidential scholars already have him at or near dead last, based just on the first term — people are going to spend the next century wanting to tear all of that stuff down. That’s a rough return on investment for a guy whose whole thing was making sure everyone knew his name. You have to feel something about that, even if it’s complicated.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere about the naming of things. Washington didn’t name Washington. Lincoln didn’t commission the Lincoln Memorial. The ones history actually decides to honor get named after — by other people, later, once the dust settles and the verdict is in. The ones who name everything themselves while they’re still around to enjoy it are usually making a bet that isn’t theirs to make. And sometimes the bet doesn’t pay.

Anyway. I’ve identified two possible solutions to the Fritos situation.

Option one: raid my kids’ cologne supply. If you have middle school boys, you understand that each of them maintains what can only be described as a fragrance arsenal — multiple bottles, varying sizes, applied with absolutely no restraint whatsoever. I could absolutely douse myself and the Fritos would vanish under the cover of Axe and whatever else they’re stockpiling. The problem is I’d smell like a middle school hallway, which science has not yet determined is an improvement.

Option two — and I think this is actually kind of genius — carry a small bag of Fritos at all times. Whenever I’m around people, I casually produce the bag and offer one around. Nobody’s going to clock me as the source of a corn smell when there are actual corn chips present and accounted for. The Fritos are the alibi. You reframe the whole situation. You’re not a person who inexplicably smells like a snack. You’re a generous snacker. Completely different vibe.

I’m going with option two until this resolves itself, which I’m sure it will. Probably.