Gaaaaaaa! I hate incense!

Or to be more accurate, I am incensed about being incensed to distraction, making my eyes water and the vile stink of it making me feel totally nauseous. Perhaps it’s a throwback response from being forced to go to church as a child? Whatever.

The problem is that there is a souvenir shop directly below me (I live on the third floor – fourth floor US/Canada). Last spring they started selling incense burners and put a table outside and suddenly clouds of incense started wafting into my living/diningroom. Okay, it depends on which way the wind is blowing, but some days they may as well be burning that shit on my diningroom table!

So I spoke to the owner of the shop, asking him to please either use less incense or at least not burn it during ‘lunchtime’ (in Spain this is approx 2-4pm) as when I have my balcony doors open it makes it impossible to eat. He basically told me to piss off. So I did – and called the police.

The police came over and I explained that I’d tried being reasonable with the shop owner but, in fact, I didn’t think he had any legal right to place things outside his shop on public property that might annoy the neighbours. And the police actually said I was right and said they would talk to the shop owner. After that the problem subsided.

Until today.

The first really spring-like day of the year – it’s 21ºC and sunny and I opened up all the balcony doors to let in some lovely fresh air . . . and got a noseful of fucking nauseating incense instead! So I’ve had to close the doors and it’s awful feeling so shut in like this.

(though I do think those little dragon-egg incense burners are rather cute)