For the past week or so, I've had an amazing number of hits from people searching for information on the new Shania Twain-shilled Febreze™ Scent Stories® aroma-player - a device that 'plays' scent-impregnated discs that change smells every 30 minutes.

Granted, it's a slightly innovative take on home scent-delivery systems, but after I read the product homepage, the little white bug-shaped machine strikes me as nothing more than the olfactory analog to Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers®, the multi-layered candy that changes flavors as you suck on it. After you've had one, you know that cherry comes after lemon, and grape comes after that. It this really so novel?

With the Scent Stories player, you apparently get a multi-sectioned disc that "plays" the perfume of Forest Mists or some such, followed by Summer Breezes, subsequently ushering in 30 minutes of Ocean Tsunamis, climaxing with a Wagnerian Eau de Ride of the Valkyries. (Actually, one of their smell-o-discs regales you with Five Variations on the Theme of Vanilla - go to the website, click on the circles respresenting the five scents, and marvel at how a different tune plays for each one! Talk about synesthesia.)

I was hoping this invention might be a real, honest to goodness 'Smell-O-Vision' that plugs into your DVD player, blasting you with a computer-generated puff of scent that corresponds to whatever appears on the screen, which could be dangerous if one watches Greco-Roman wrestling or Olympic beach volleyball. No such luck. It's only an automatic version of the Four Air Fresheners of the Apocalypse sitting ominously in our work bathroom, ready to slay serious stinks from the Four Corners of the Earth.

Just wait a few months, and you'll be able to snag a Febreze Scent Stories player at your local yard sale for next to nothing. They'll be nestled in with the beef jerky makers, the fruit dehydrators, and the rest of those forgotten gotta-have'em holiday gift gadgets. Give me Nippon Kodo Incense any day - now, that's wonderful stuff. If you want a kaleidoscope of smells, look no further than their NK Line's amazing chromatic range of bouquets, like 'Snow in Kyoto,' 'Bees In Love," or 'Rice Shower.' Totally, totally stinkadelic.

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