I walked past a large evergreen wreath the other day. The crisp scent of the cut pine needles was a bolt of fresh, natural smell that cleared the air and made me breath deep until it tingled inside me.

“This is the essential scent of winter,” I thought to myself.

Later that same day I stopped in the shopping mall to check off an errand on my list. At the coffee shop they were giving away free samples of hot apple cider. The aroma was sweet and warming. The whiff of the steamy brew cleansed and pleased and warmed me inside.

“This, too, is the scent of winter,” I pondered.

But at the tale end of that week, another scent of winter was about to give me pause.

The shoe boot was an invention that should have never caught on. When snow and ice and slush fill the landscape, then it should be clear: shoes for inside, boots for outside. There is no room for a hybrid.

The hybrid, the shoe boot, is a mistake.

I made the mistake of buying a pair of shoe boots once. They are a plastic blend with a little leather up top and they zip, rather than tie. They are easy to get on and off. That is their only positive feature.

My shoe boots conduct the cold from the ground directly up through my socks to my feet. Because they are basically plastic, the boots do not breath like a normal shoe and my feet sweat inside the shoe boots. From the moment I put these things on, my feet are both wet and cold.

Nature takes its own course when wet and cold feet are trapped inside plastic containers that do not breath. Draw your own conclusion as to the natural outcome of such state of affairs. But don’t inhale said conclusion.

I cannot account for what possessed me to put on these awful shoe boots Saturday morning. But I did, and then headed off to a 9 a.m. appointment at the home of clients Lora and Will.

Upon arrival I took off my shoe boots and left them at the door. The three of us then proceed to the dining room where we sat and met. My cold, wet feet pleaded for a clean pair of socks.

At one point during our meeting Sophy joined us at the table. Sophy is a loveable, three-year old basset hound. She made the rounds at the table, said her hellos, and plopped herself down near Lora.

“Sophy, you need a bath,“ Lora exclaimed!

Now frankly, I couldn’t tell. And I wasn’t about to tell. I pressed both my feet hard against the floor and moved them not one inch. And I hoped that, indeed, it was true, that maybe Sophy needed a bath, and that was that.

Later that very same day, I disposed of my shoe boots. I threw them right into the trash. One winter scent is no longer. And in one fell swoop, the world was rid of one pair of shoe boots and gained one clean basset hound.

And speaking of scents, have you tried to purchase deodorant at the drug store of late?

There I was stooped down in the aisle of CVS wrestling with thick plastic shields separating me from my Right Guard.

“Don’t pull them,” said the CVS worker walking past me, “they slide.”

It turns out the deodorant sticks are now secured and fortified behind sliding plastic shields. And this is for what? Granted the price of deodorant has gone up of late. That said, I’m not sure how making them hard to get makes them any safer from shoplifters who value personal hygiene. And trust me, these sliding plastic shields don’t slide well and it’s all but impossible to get the deodorant container out from behind.

Does this mean even more scents of winter? It doesn’t make sense.