“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” – Carl Sandberg

It’s December 13th and while my house should be emitting the lovely scents of the season- cinnamon, pine , clove or cookies baking- my house is reeking of something else entirely. ONIONS.

I kept seeing this thing going around on Facebook about how you should cut an onion in half and put them in several rooms in your house to fight the flu and other cold-like viruses. According to these posts, back in 1919, 40 million people worldwide died from the flu, and while they were trying to figure out how to fix the problem, they turned to the farmers to see if they had any bright ideas. While visiting farmers, while many of them had succumbed to the flu, one family didn’t. Turns out the wife had placed a cut onion in the rooms in their house, and when the scientists examined one of the onions, it was dripping with the flu virus. Well, lets just say I wish I had checked with snopes.com before I cut up onion and put it in my house. The story is false. I have no one but myself to blame.

As I write, my eyes are filled with tears and the house is filled with the glorious stench of raw onion, which really kind of smells like some weird body odor. It’s as if Santa himself might have been exercising vigorously in my living room. It’s disgusting.

It’s not that the onions soak up the virus, I think the way this might actually work is that if anyone (carrying the flu virus or not) comes for a visit, they will not want to stay long. This doesn’t give the flu virus time to latch onto anything. If I were the flu, I wouldn’t want to be here. If you are looking for a way to send any visitors packing, I have found your solution!

Send your friends and family packing with the smell of onion!

Supermom- 0
Onion- 1

"I am, I am, I am Supermom- and I can do anything." (except rid the house of stinky onions) — “I am, I am, I am Supermom- and I can do anything.” (except rid the house of onion aftermath)

Sadly, I really felt good about what I was doing at the time. I carefully cut the onion in two, placed one in the living room and one in our office. I thought, this is such a great thing! I’m protecting my 5 month old from a virus! And it’s natural! I am a good person. I’m making the environment better for my family and for the planet.

I am a good person, who now smells like onions.

I was pretty pleased with myself until the baby started crying. And then my eyes started to water… and then that smell… that SMELL. We live in a cozy, close quarters kind of space. It did not take long for the room to fill up and irritate the crap out of everyone. I’m glad I discontinued this practice in less than a half an hour.

Now, to neutralize the smell. I’ll be sure to snopes any solution before I try anything. Lesson learned.