My Award Winning Hyacinth Flower and Those Who Have Been Graced with Its Scent

My husband Flathead has been secretly growing things in our basement. Namely, a hyacinth bulb that blossomed on Valentine’s Day for the most perfectly timed surprise ever.

If you have never had a hyacinth flower in your presence, the only thing to know about hyacinths is that for two weeks, they have an incredibly strong (and lovely) aroma.

In fact, the flower, which is in our reception area at work, has garnered numerous observations. Most of them start with “Mmm, smells like…” and end with:

• Coffee
• Beer cheese soup
• Chocolate
• Teen spirit (maybe because the song was playing in the car on my way to work…on the “classic rock” station, boo hiss)
• Soy sauce
• Citrus fruit
• Baked potatoes
• Being nibbled to death by a blind, communist duck (actually, that is not a smell at all, but a quote from my recent telephone training; I’ve been dying to use it somewhere)
• Hyacinth

One person in the entire university where I work guessed correctly. That person was not me. I thought it smelled like baked potatoes.

Obviously, I have been gifted the world’s most extraordinary plant life. I plan to make the rounds of all the talk shows and tabloids with this incredible specimen. Stay tuned!

Spatulacakes! I just realized that means I’ve already won two awards this year (Mother of the Year and Flower of the Year, if you’re counting), and we’re only two-and-a-half months into 2013! I will need to clear off a nesting doll mantle to display all these glittery honors.