Eau de 5 O'Clock

I am disconsolate. 

I have just discovered that in the January 21, 1950 issue of The New Yorker there was an advertisement for a fragrance called “Five O’Clock.”

For decades now, I have been saving up my pennies in order to form a company to produce and market a fragrance called “Eau de 5 O’Clock.” I still feel there is a need (which I shall explain shortly) for my scent, but faced with the possibility of a trademark dispute, I cannot see a way forward.

*

It all started with adultery. 

One day, long ago, I was musing about adultery (purely in the abstract, you understand), and I wondered how one gets away with it. It seemed impossible to me. 

I pictured one of those suburban havens surrounded by a picket fence—you know, an Ozzie and Harriet dwelling, where they only eat white bread. I imagined the philandering hubby coming through the front door, calling out, “Honey, I’m home.”

Now, sex is smelly and sweaty.

[Dick Cavett: “Is sex dirty? Woody Allen: “Only if it’s done right.”]

There are two possibilities here: Either the wandering spouse had immediately jumped from his amour’s arms into his business suit and sprinted to Grand Central to catch the train to Larchmont, or he had taken time to shower at the trysting spot in order to remove all signs of misbehavior. 

Each of these scenarios raises problems for hubby. If he was quick off the mark to catch the choo-choo, how does he keep wifey from smelling sex? Even the dumbest Dora must eventually wonder why her spouse after entering the family abode, immediately races up the stairs (sticking close to the wall) to the bathroom to take a shower.  

The second idea—taking a shower before coming home—brings up a different smelling problem: How can he explain the fact that he carries about him a residual aroma of Ivory soap?

*

Enter “Eau de 5 O’Clock.”

Perfumes and colognes aim to make people smell like something other than what they are. For women, it may be roses, lavender, or dozens of other floral scents. For men it may be leather, spices, musk, or such like. 

My fragrance also was designed to make the user smell other than what he is: an adulterer. It was designed to make him smell as he should smell after a hard day’s work pushing paper to pay for the picket fence. Thus, the aroma of “Eau de 5 O’Clock” is a mixture of the scents of coffee, cigarettes, cigars, ink, copier toner, a two-martini lunch, and subway sweat. With no possibility of detection of the truth.

“Honey, I’m home.”

“Yes, dear, did you have good day at the office?”