At Ripple Bagel and Deli where I work, we have foaming soap in the bathroom. It's not what most people remember from the bathroom. Most people remember the records nailed to the walls or the caged toilet paper in the corner or the new freaky holographic cracked mirror, but all I can think about is the foaming soap.

I know you've seen this soap. You dispense it into your hand, and rather than gel, you get prefoamed soap. I get offended by it - what, am I too lazy to foam my own soap? No, I'll take regular gelled soap over pre-foamed soap any day, thank you.

Which is why I tend to use the soap sitting next to the hand sink behind the counter when a need to wash my hands arises. Susan, one of the owners, usually buys regular old gel soap. No prefoam. And I like that.

And she randomly bought some lavender-scented soap a few weeks ago, which makes your hands wreak of.. Well.. Lavender, I guess, but it tends to remind me of Old Spice, which makes me think my hands are smelling a little too much of old man, and this does not sit well with me.

So the question comes: foaming soap or old-man-smelling hands?

I frequently suck it up and choose the latter.

And, having been sick for the past few weeks, I've been washing my hands more often than I think I ever have, only because I wouldn't wish this coughing madness on anyone, especially someone I'm making food for.

After having washed my hands at the deli one morning, my hands now wreaking of lavender or old man or whatever it is, I ventured to the alley out back for a cigarette break. I cherish my cigarette breaks. They keep me sane.

I brought the cigarette to my mouth, closing my eyes in the process, catching a whiff of lavender-scented hands and cigarette smoke, and I was immediately transported back to London.

Y'see - I lived in the Bayswater borough of London for five months during my Junior year at Butler. And this lavender smoke combination was exactly the smell of the room belonging to my pub-bartender boyfriend, Fabricio.

I like to become a regular at places where I hang out. I like for workers to know my name, to know what I order, to idly chit-chat with me. And when I moved to London, it was no different. I frequented a French pastry shop run by Spaniards, getting too-expensive cappuccinos, the workers knowingly giving me too much foam because I liked it, depositing an ash try on my table at arrival. I hung around at an indie rock club long enough to be tossed free vodka and cokes by the bartender, Tim, that were definitely 75% booze and 25% coke. I could also be found with a pint of Kronenburg at the Prince Alfred pub on Queensway often enough to hang out with all of the bartenders there and start dating one. Which I did. And his bedroom, littered with a Gibson rip-off guitar, half-packs of cigarettes, soccer tee shirts, rented DVDs, and a French roommate, smelled vaguely of lavender and cigarette smoke.

I look fondly on my time in London, think that I should just pick up and move there, but find myself held back by a million realistic excuses. But every now and then, I randomly remember it at the oddest of times, something bizarre setting it off, like someone having the same ring tone as Fabricio, or grabbing a shawerma at Gyro Joint after a night of drinking - much like I used to do at Abomuhammed on Queensway. They had chips you'd kill for. Or sitting out back during work smoking a cigarette with hands that smell like lavender. It seems almost unfair, to be minding your own business on your smoke break only to be brought back to a place you wish you had the ovaries to move back to.

Alas.