Walking away after a morning episode comparing almond, walnut, peach, apricot, cherry, and prune, I find that the whole room smells like prune. I step outside with Finnegan; a wind wrests the screen door from my grip. His nose rises to attention at the passing air. I smell … prune. I have been afflicted with a prune noseworm.

A true noseworm, if it exists, would be something different. It’s possible that when you get a whiff of something weird, such as castoreum (a secretion from beaver butts), a snapshot of the odor sticks with you. That might be because the fragrance has clung to your shirt or your nose hairs, Gilbert says, or it could be a kind of “mental resonation” that “sticks in your nose, and you keep smelling it throughout the day.”

I don't get earworms so much as noseworms. Smells that haunt me. Fresh baked bread. Watermelon. Bar-b-que flavor potato chips. It usually haunts me until I'm driven into the kitchen to forage. This is a major disadvantage of working at home.

> Eeeeewwwww…. What's the olfactory equivalent of an earworm??

A noseworm perhaps?