Coffee and Bacon Grease

Have you ever had an olfactory experience crimp your day? You're going along, minding your own business, when suddenly, a certain smell transports you back to a particular time and place.

It happened to me one day at a Whataburger drive-thru while waiting on an order of sausage and pancakes. As I handed the cashier my money, the strong, savory scent of bacon grease mixed with coffee wafted from the open drive-thru window into my car and piqued my nostrils. For a moment I was a little girl again, sitting in my grandmother's kitchen in a cotton nightgown, watching her move back and forth from the sink to the stove as she made my breakfast.

An eerie silence slowly ushered me back to reality, and I blinked away the memory.With my order in hand and a smile on my face, I headed for home, beholden to Whataburger for brewing coffee, cooking bacon, and evoking a memory.