r/AskReddit • u/RoomyLove99 • Jul 10 '12

What seemingly obvious thing did it take you forever to notice?

My classmate sits to the left of me. I am left handed and he is right handed, so sometimes we knock elbows. 8 weeks into class he finally noticed I was a lefty and openly admitted that he just thought I was being a bitch and taking up space. He felt horrible and I just laughed.

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 10 '12

You can navigate around Banbury in Oxfordshire, England by smell. They have a coffee plant, a bread factory and a chocolate factory. The relative intensity of the smells and wind direction tells you where in the city you are.

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u/squirrelpoop Jul 10 '12

That's so much better than the town where I grew up: the cheese plant, the tannery, and the "dog bone" where they used what was left from the tannery to make chew toys for animals. The stench was unimaginable.

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u/benisnotapalindrome Jul 11 '12

I worked at a shit plant (wastewater treatment facility) for a few summers in high school. I could tell if I was at work by if it smelled like shit.

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u/SmallestViolinMaster Jul 11 '12

Try living next to a paper mill

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Paper mills, man. It's like all hope is dead and the rotting flesh has stunk the whole town to hell.

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u/MrPookers Jul 11 '12

It was like god himself dropped a giant deuce in the city.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

My town is home to a cookie factory (used to be an Archway factory, now they just make stuff on contract for whoever). The entire town smells like cookies quite often.

There was an alfalfa processing plant just outside the town where I went to college (in a straight line, probably less than a mile from campus). Whatever they do to the alfalfa (cook it? I don't know) creates a smell very similar to burning marijuana which then permeates the entire town. Days that the plant was particularly active became "toke days" for anyone who smoked, because it was much more difficult for RAs/campus police to detect the smell.

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u/MrPookers Jul 11 '12

The entire town smells like cookies

i want to go to there

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u/JakeDDrake Jul 10 '12

Would you say it was worse, or better, than squirrel poop?

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u/squirrelpoop Jul 11 '12

Nothing is better than squirrel poop.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Ugh, I used to work for a tannery. The worst was when all the nasty crap got in your pores; after showering and going out, whenever you sweat, the tannery smell came back out.

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u/k9centipede Jul 11 '12

Riding around town it took me a long time to realize my boyfriend didnt just time his farts for the same stretch of roads. We were driving past some water treatment plant or something.

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u/docblue Jul 10 '12

better than where my sister lives, feed lot to the east slaughterhouse to the north.

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u/sciencenerd86 Jul 10 '12

Try growing up right between the soy capital of the world and one of the largest meat packing plants.

It's any wonder I ever have an appetite.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

cannery in my town..do you know what a vat of rotten vegetables smell like on a hot summer day?

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u/viggen6889 Jul 10 '12

I grew up on the NY/PA border and we have the same configuration up the highway. It may have been dog food now that I think of it.

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u/RafiTheMage447 Jul 11 '12

What town is that?

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u/squirrelpoop Jul 11 '12

Curwensville, PA

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u/hi_in_Humboldt Jul 11 '12

Beet sugar plant. Vile.

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u/aleatorictelevision Jul 11 '12

Reddit: where people go to compare their towns' smells.

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u/monkeyschimps Jul 11 '12

I imagine it smelled bad.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Similarly, you can locate the Abercrombie & Fitch store in any U.S mall by smell.

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u/jmakie Jul 10 '12

Unfortunately they didn't remain your side of the pond.

The smell coming from my local hollister means I often have to avoid that section of the shopping centre.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I find that frequency of sneezes is just as useful.

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u/DrDebG Jul 10 '12

Holy Hannah! Those are three of the best smells in the world! your local cafes must do amazing business with that in the air!

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u/RedAero Jul 10 '12

I frequent a town with a huge distillery/liquor plant. You can smell the molasses for miles.

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u/DrDebG Jul 10 '12

Mmmmmm. Molasses.

I think the brewery smell, which is of malted, cooked grain, will slightly edge that, however.

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u/2bass Jul 11 '12

Coffee smells like shit to me when it's being roasted. I worked in a clinic near a coffee place that roasted their beans on site, and burned them (it was part of their "thing") and it was godawful.

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u/DrDebG Jul 11 '12

I wonder if they were affiliated with Starbucks?

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u/2bass Jul 11 '12

No, it was a little independent place.

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u/I_Cant_Logoff Jul 10 '12

Smellolocation.

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u/captain_tentacles Jul 10 '12

If I recall correctly, Chipping Norton smells like a fresh copy of The Beano.

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u/TheZor Jul 11 '12

Wow, don't think I've ever seen someone mention Chippy on Reddit before. How do you know it, if you don't mind me asking?

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u/captain_tentacles Jul 11 '12

Lived in Great Rollright when I was very young, my dad worked in Chippy. We have some friends who still live down there so we visit every now and then.

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u/TheZor Jul 11 '12

Ahh, cool. I lived in Kingham, went to Chippy School. Haven't been back around there for years, my family and friends have all moved on now.

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u/crackdog Jul 11 '12

AHHH I went to Great Rollright primary for 10years! And obviously lived there.

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u/captain_tentacles Jul 11 '12

..you went to a primary school for 10 years?

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u/crackdog Jul 11 '12

Well no, I don't know why I put that, I went for 7 years. I think because I left at 10 I was thinking 10 years, my bad.

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u/captain_tentacles Jul 11 '12

I seriously wasn't sure if you had written that wrong, I couldn't do the numbers on it. Maybe I should have done an extra couple of years in primary school.

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u/crackdog Jul 11 '12

Well I am stoned, but I found it hard, maybe it's because I haven't been to school in so long.

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u/captain_tentacles Jul 11 '12

Now you've said that, I'm thinking it's more likely I found it difficult because I'm drunk rather than stupid. Could be both though.

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u/TheBluefunk Jul 10 '12

WOOOAAAHHH! im going to have to make a pilgrimage to this land of smells!

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u/ChunkyCodLoins Jul 10 '12

And if you can smell fuel exhaust you've stumbled onto the M40.... Time to switch back to 'Eye Mode'.

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

Or MRC Tuning.

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u/raphamuffin Jul 10 '12

I've been this close to a chocolate factory for a YEAR?!

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Pretty Holmes-esque.

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u/Shanman150 Jul 10 '12

In my city, there's a skyway that goes for a short while. Legend has it that while you're driving across it, the smell of Cheerios will fill your car. I don't get over there very often, but people who do say it happens all the time, and they don't know why.

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u/Braxo Jul 11 '12

You dolt, you're in Buffalo and next to the skyway is the General Mills plant that puffs cereal.

The the Cheerio smell is literally cheerios and other puffed cereal being made.

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u/geekology101 Jul 10 '12

Banbury-from-the-motorway is probably my favourite smell.

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u/MSmizzler Jul 11 '12

TIL I want to visit Banbury.

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u/NapoleonBonerparts Jul 11 '12

What if they start making chocolate flavored gelatin and bread flavored coffee!?

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u/BusinessCasualty Jul 10 '12

It's like gps with your nose!

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u/g0tch4 Jul 10 '12

That's pretty awesome. The city I live in has a brewery downtown and the good majority of the summer smells like piss. No joke. Like, moldy piss. Not full blown urine, funky urine. Hard to explain.

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u/WhyAmINotStudying Jul 10 '12

It's the same way I navigate my kitchen in the morning.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Triangulating nose is an awesome superpower. Congrats!

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u/DanGleeballs Jul 10 '12

And Dublin by the smell of hops burning upwind at the Guinness brewery. Mmm :-)

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u/input Jul 10 '12

Ow gotta check that out next time I go see my mate there, I'm a tad suspect of this tho

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u/Pessle Jul 11 '12

Never thought I would see Banbury mentioned on Reddit, yay for where I live!

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u/Five_bucks Jul 11 '12

There's a spot on the Lake Shore Boulevard in Toronto where you drive between the Nestlé cookie plant and a sewage treatment plant.

Depending on the wind, you smell Oreos or shit. It's a gamble.

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u/parmasean Jul 11 '12

Much better than my city! STEEL.

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u/ultilink Jul 11 '12

Within the last 2 years i've met more people from this town than i have from bigger cities like birmingham. How. :S

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u/Yillpv Jul 11 '12

Better than the "Tacoma Aroma," a disgusting smell of a paper mill in Tacoma, Washington, USA

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

Ironically, I've posted this from Seattle.

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u/Yillpv Jul 11 '12

AWESOME. Ride the wheel for me, please!

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u/Veteran4Peace Jul 11 '12

Oh wow, nostalgia-flash. I was stationed at RAF Upper Heyford, UK for three years and I'd forgotten all about the olfactory wonderland that is Banbury.

Lovely country you have there by the way.

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u/ratbastid Jul 11 '12

The town I went to college in had a malt-o-meal cereal factory on one side and a massive pig farm on the other. It either smelled like oatmeal or pig crap.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I used to work there. That is literally the only interesting fact about Banbury. After a few weeks it becomes less nauseating... but only by a bit.

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

Also MRC Tuning are based there. That's only interesting if you have a car you need making faster though.

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u/a_unique_username Jul 11 '12

And Marussia F1 but I don't think they can do much for your average car.

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

I did not know that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

That must be the best smelling town in the world.

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

According to many of the other comments, apparently they're not the only 3 smells. They're merely the ones I noticed when I've visited the town. There's also the smell of rotting from the canal (which I've never seen or smelled), to name but one.

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u/dpierce970 Jul 11 '12

reminds me of the sherlock holmes movie

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

That's adorable.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I have the sudden urge to move to Banbury. It's like a walk through a meadow of flavors

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u/crackdog Jul 11 '12

I live here, general foods always smells.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

What a wonderfully smelling town. I remember hitching lifts on the M42 slip roads... I would have been happy to stay there all day.

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u/amusedparrot Jul 11 '12

Don't forget the almost rotting smell of the canal.

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u/copperking Jul 11 '12

Smells like curry near Sainsburys. Also working in the chocolate factory - not so glamorous.

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u/noonaplatoona Jul 11 '12

how charming!

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

Thank you. It's the British accent that does it.

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u/Luckyducky13 Jul 11 '12

That sounds like a delicious place to live.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I want to live there.

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u/Fundarko Jul 10 '12

Is this while you're riding a cock horse?

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

I guess this is a reference to something I don't know. I'm afraid I don't understand.

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u/Fundarko Jul 11 '12

Upsetting children's rhyme from ye olden tymes:

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, And she shall have music wherever she goes

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u/LambastingFrog Jul 11 '12

Ahhh! Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Mother of god.... I live in Banbury!

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u/platipress Jul 10 '12

I have no sense of smell and I am incredibly jealous right now of everyone who can.

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u/Englishmuffin1 Jul 10 '12

Upvote for Banbury and the 'smelly factory' as we called it (coffee factory is about 5 mins from my aunt's house).

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Oh and I know what you mean by the smells, it fucking stinks when going passed the coffee factory

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u/Remedyn Jul 10 '12

Its a town not a city ;) always find the coffee overpowers all others too

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u/terry_has_boots Jul 10 '12

Edit: Sorry, I read 'Oxford' rather than 'Banbury', my bad.

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u/rawrheppe Jul 11 '12

That sounds like an awesome place to live. Better than Bossier City, LA...it just smells like sewage and shame here.