I don't know about the "ether" part, but this for real happened to me at a 7-11!
I was getting gas and there was a car full of people at the pump across from me and they were totally doing the "we sell cheap perfume.. here look at this list" sort of thing. I said no thanks, and luckily my husband was with me so they didn't persist any more than that.
Creepy!
It's happened to me to. And they were carrying a backpack with perfumes, and they asked me what perfume I wore and I just said that I don't use any cause I'm allergic and the guy was like "oh but u smell so flowery" and I was just like "yeah thats my soap". Don't know if it was ether or just seriously cheap perfume but either way, I wasn't interested.