"The Factory Smell"

My dad is the owner of a factory. It manufactures machinery parts. There are many large machines in the factory: lathes, drills, special tool-building thingies and a couple of newly-added CNCs (computer-programmable machines). He has a small office at the corner of the factory, where he meets clients. When we (family and friends) go there, we generally sit in the small office space. Every half-hour or so he walks out to find out if everything's alright and our employees are doing ok. Sometimes he rolls up his sleeves and works along with them, if he thinks they need help or direction. Once in a while one of them comes into the office to ask a question about a die or some specification, and I watch in fascination as dad looks into the blueprints and tells them what to do and how to do it.

Our factory was much smaller when I was little. It has grown over the years. I remember times when dad did most of the work himself. He would get home and go for a warm shower, and I remember thinking his shirt had "the factory smell". Only much later did I realise that was the smell of machine grease. When I was a child, mom never allowed me out towards the machines, for fear that I might hurt myself. As I grew older I used to wander among the machines, asking Paa what each machine did and how it worked. My dad loved explaining it all to me. I used to talk to the workers in the broken dialect I knew, and somehow I managed to understand something of what they told me in return. I admire my dad, the way his enterprise has grown, his integrity and hard work, and respect him for his love for his factory and his work.

This morning, I had to drop off the car at a garage for a general tune-up. I was recommended to this place by a friend, I'd never been there before. I drove out as per his directions and reached a deserted alley in which the garage is located. I somehow thought I'd lost my way, I remembered mom saying, don't go there! It's "not a nice locality". And I didn't know what to expect and who I'd meet. I asked around and found a whole slew of taxis waiting, I think this garage caters almost exclusively to taxis. I meet the owner of the garage, I tell him I've heard about him through so-and-so. He says, yes, he told me to expect you, do you want to get your car in? So I drive my car in, shut off the engine, open the door, and step out.

That's when I caught a whiff of it. Machine Grease.

Of course, it is the most natural thing to smell machine grease in a mechanical workshop. I just didn't think I would. I just wasn't prepared for "the factory smell", the smell of dad's shirts after a long day at work, the smell of ... something so familiar and intimate, that all of a sudden I was totally comfortable in my strange surroundings. It was as if the little switch in my brain that had been screaming "achtung!", switched off all of a sudden. Stilled by the familiarity of the smell.

Do you realize how much you owe your nose?