Tell us about a sensation — a taste, a smell, a piece of music — that transports you back to childhood.

I’ve written about nostalgia before. The scent of WD-40 enables me to recall my very early life, when I was about five years old. The scent of this product is indelibly linked with my maternal grandfather and every time I catch it’s scent a part of my consciousness returns back to when I was five, sitting in my grandfathers lap playing with his miniature train set that was set up in his root cellar. It’s quite difficult for me to access those memories without WD-40, so it’s become a part of a ritual when I use WD-40. I always find time when I have to use WD-40 to dwell on the unlocked memories and in a way, bring my long passed on grandfather back to me now. In many ways, the people that we loved and lost are always with us, in this limited way. I suppose in one way of considering it, it’s through WD-40 that my grandfather has a rough semblance of immortality, at least in my consciousness.

There are also other strong memories, but they are linked to places and mundane situations by exceptional events. I remember, for example, exactly where I was and what I was feeling and seeing when the Challenger accident occurred as well as when the 9/11/2001 event occurred. They are unremarkable memories only made important because of their bound events keeping them “alive” in my memory. Not really worth writing about, at least not in the context of WD-40 and my grandfather.