Okay, I simply must ask this. For weeks now my wife and I have been struck by how many commercials there are for home air fresheners on TV. In particular, we’ve fallen into the ritual of watching Scrubs at 11:00 pm on WGN in order to hasten the arrival of Morpheus. It seems like a full third of the commercials are for air fresheners of wildly divergent technological sophistication. Moreover, the commercials are for different brands and styles of air fresheners, suggesting that there’s a huge market for them — and a huge demand. My wife thinks the inability of millions of people to keep a clean home has to be part of the story. I think she’s almost certainly right (as anyone who visited chez Jonah during the bachelor days might attest). Though the bouquet of wet dog, the spore of incontinent cats and other surprises often upset the olfactory balance in even the cleanest homes. Regardless, these commercials aren’t aimed at single young men who eat over the sink. Nor are they targeted at the unexpected stink bomb. They’re aimed at up-scale women, working moms etc. who need permanent atmosphere improvement. Could the demand for domestic air scrubbers be a small piece of evidence that harried working women are sweeping the stench under the air freshener rug? I’m not judging anyone. It’s just that in my experience, if you have a persistent stink in your house, there’s a problem that isn’t going to be solved by trying to mask it. But it’s pretty clear that millions of consumers disagree.