Michael I'm very sensitive to smells, and nothing ruins my day quite like cheap perfume or the smell of sweat when a colleague at work has apparently never heard of deodorant. The worst is the smell of vinegar; Angelika sometimes experiments at home making materials for her group classes with vinegar, and it drives me crazy. Or the stench of stale food when Angelika has eaten lunch in the car and I have to drive it the next day. Yuck!

Americans are also sensitive to smells, but to a degree that is almost laughable. Most can barely eat Camembert without fainting; only the particularly brave venture into Emmental, and real stinkers like Limburger, Munster, or something French like Époisses de Bourgogne may only appeal to about 1%, while the rest turn on portable table fans when such cheeses are served.

When you take your car to the car wash here, diligent Mexican workers clean it inside and out and often spray some "Air Freshener" inside, which is supposedly called "Lufterfrischer" in German. In many Americans' cars, there's also a Christmas tree-like symbol hanging from the rearview mirror, continuously emitting an artificial smell that's also meant to convey freshness. Popular scents from the manufacturer "Little Trees" include various fruits like "Green Apple" or "Coconut." That was never really my thing.

But recently, when I had to remove food odors from the car again, I found a spray bottle of the scent spray specialist "Febreze" at Target, who also makes scented sheets for dryers. The product is called "Febreze One" and it disperses a bamboo scent using a pump bottle, the likes of which I had never seen before. You just operate the lever a few times, and after three or four pumps, the same lever then sprays the scent mist as if there were propellant gas inside, which is not the case. It's not as silly as other pump bottles where you have to press down like an idiot to get a weak squirt out the front; instead, it really works on its own and out the front comes a tremendously powerful mist that you wouldn't believe. Truly a top-notch product. The scent is unobtrusive, it quickly dealt with the food odor in the car, and I was able to drive relaxed again.

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Inside San Francisco's Sewage System
  	The New Dishwasher
  	My New York Times Subscription
  	Smoke over the City
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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Inside San Francisco's Sewage System
  	The New Dishwasher
  	My New York Times Subscription
  	Smoke over the City
  	Yearly Healthcare Open Enrollment