Q: Stop, children, what's that smell?

A: You're very close to Newark. I'm just sayin'.¹

But if you're wondering why New York City smells unusually like gas today, the official answer is, Who knows!? It's just one of those things, like how sometimes the city smells like maple syrup, or weed, or homeless guy. These olfactory phenomena can't ever be fully explained, except for the last two.

The important thing is, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, "It may just be an unpleasant smell." In other words, you probably won't die.

Anyway, I enjoyed this fun fact from the Associated Press' coverage:

There was a small natural gas leak in Greenwich Village, but it wouldn't have been enough to account for the pervasive odor, Bloomberg said. He said the smell may have resulted from a leak of the chemical mercaptan, which is added to natural gas to produce its easily recognizable odor. By itself, natural gas is odorless.

Hey, you learn something new every day!

This has been a disaster, though, for the mercaptan industry, which was already sick and tired of the old lady upstairs asking why their offices smell like gas.

In retaliation, they quickly launched a series of feel-good ads:

It's all part of their new P.R. campaign, "O Captain! Mercaptan!" If that doesn't work, they can just go back to blaming Jersey.

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¹ I wrote this before reading the Washington Post's very funny lede.