[QUOTE=Lunar Saltlick]
[Bolding mine] A few years ago, I read an article about strange jobs, and it turns out that sewer work pays really well. After a few years, when you’ve got some experience and shown that you can cut it down there, they really don’t want to let you get away, and really open the floodgates (money-wise, that is, not the other floodgates). I believe that experienced sewer workers make more than I do. This is a useless factoid to kill the thread.
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Actually, I keep mints in every room in the house, in my car, and on my person at all times for that very reason. I’m obsessive about my breath, and would be mortified if it were bad. No one ever tells me it’s bad; in fact, my friends rib me about the amount of mints I eat, and one gives me a big ol’ jar of peppermint candies for Christmas every year.
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Sorry, but yeah, coffee and cigarettes give you killer breath. You know that sugary mints just make it worse, right? The sugar in the mints undoes all the good that the mint flavour does.
[QUOTE=featherlou]
Sorry, but yeah, coffee and cigarettes give you killer breath. You know that sugary mints just make it worse, right? The sugar in the mints undoes all the good that the mint flavour does.
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Actually, I use the sugar-free kind. Does that make a difference? I keep bags of sugar-free red-and-white peppermint candies everywhere and suck on them constantly (when I’m not smoking or drinking coffee). In my pocket I carry those strips that dissolve in your mouth or the little beads filled with liquid. I have to believe that the intensity of the mint at least temporarily covers the coffee and cigarette odor. At least one of my friends would not mince words in the slightest if I stank.
My dad once picked me up from my after-school activity and took me right to my mom at her job at the mall, once there they decided to have supper at the food court.
My after school activity?
Horsebackriding.
I reeked of horses, which to me is not a bad smell, but to others?
I noticed people checking their shoe bottoms for poop around me.
[QUOTE=Licentious Ectomorph]
I have to believe that the intensity of the mint at least temporarily covers the coffee and cigarette odor.
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The cig smell isn’t just in your mouth, it is in your very lungs, in fact it is in your skin, your hair and your clothes. No breath mint can fight that. It’s nice you try.
Trust me, if you talk to an ex-smoker (or become one) you will realize how much you reek. You’ll have to wash or dry clean (or throw out and buy new) your wardrobe, and clean your house and your car. You will wonder at the saint-like tolerance of your friends in putting up with that horrible reek.
Find an old over-filled ashtray that has been sitting for a couple days- get your nose down close- that is the smell of a smoker to a non-smoker.
Trust me, if you talk to an ex-smoker (or become one) you will realize how much you reek.
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Au contraire. Seven years gone here. I notice that breath smells within two feet, but not much else. I worked on a PC used for a couple of years by smokers, and it was pretty funky. Lest you say I’ve killed my senses, I can no longer eat hot and sour soup with impunity.
It’s those stinky folks who use too much perfume that irritate me!
[QUOTE=Beltane]
It is possible that he could have not been able to smell himself- or anything else. Anosmia- the inablility to smell is actually very very rare, but it does exist. My father has no sense of smell. (as a result of a taumatic brain injury.)
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Wow - there sure is a high incidence of traumatic brain injury among public library patrons! Somebody ought to do a study.
A friend of mine used to work in a back-ass country grocery store - probably an IGA, you know. Anyway, this lady used to be a regular customer who had such a reek that they’d see her coming and start spraying the air freshener before she even got to the door. She was a nice lady (although she paid in crusty pennies) but had an amazingly foul odor. I certainly had my share of reeking customers when I worked retail as well.
But you had no idea it was a person - you honestly thought it was a problem with the product. Don’t be mad at yourself when you meant no harm.
[QUOTE=Beltane]
It is possible that he could have not been able to smell himself- or anything else. Anosmia- the inablility to smell is actually very very rare, but it does exist. My father has no sense of smell. (as a result of a taumatic brain injury.)
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A former friend of ours lost virtually all her sense of smell as well as taste after being in a car accident.
To be fair, as a non-smoker, I don’t think the walking ashtray smell applies to all smokers.
This happened to me once, in a Spencer’s- very strong stale piss smell- turn the aisle, and there’s a really old poor dude in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag.
I agree with everyone else, you didn’t insult him intentionally and if he’s not even aware he stinks he probably had no idea you were referring to him.
I’ve done that thing with leaving the clothes in the washer a little too long and then drying them and not noticing they had that smell. I have no sense of smell in the morning, I don’t know why and it’s annoying because stuff like this can happen. I have gone to put on what I expect to be clean clothes, gone out and then later noticed the smell and been mortified. I must have taken the clothes out of the washer and dryer in the morning so I didn’t notice they smelled. When I notice the smell I usually try to get home home and change as soon as possible. I even apologize to anyone I’m around for the smell and I have been assured that they did not notice any smell. I am pretty darn sure that I never reeked so bad as to be able to be smelled from several feet away and around corners.
I work at a veterinary hospital. Animals can get pretty darn stinky, so I am used to foul smells. However, I am still shocked everytime I run into a human that stinks worse than their pet. The first time it happened I commented on the pet’s smell. I thought it had to have a rotten open wound, maybe even with maggots in it, the smell was so bad. I took the pet away from the owner and went to the treatment room and then realized that the animal didn’t smell. So I learned not to comment on bad smelling pets anymore unless the owner says it first or I can defintely pin the smell on the animal; i.e. cat pee smell or anal gland smell which are distinctive animal odors. We’ve had to remove more pets from exam rooms in order to get away from the owner’s stench than I even want to think about.
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
To be fair, as a non-smoker, I don’t think the walking ashtray smell applies to all smokers.
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Yeah. I smoke, but before I did I dated a smoker, and except for a slight odor on the breath occasionally (which I didn’t find offensive) he didn’t reek. And now, as a smoker, I’ve only gotten comments on it twice- once while working in a bath and beauty products store, from a customer I was talking to, who obviously smelled it in contrast to the overpowering fruit smells around us.
And the other, right after I finished a cigarette and came back from my lunch break, from my office mate. She asked if I smoked, I responded in the affirmative, and she thought it was so odd because we’d worked together for months without her noticing it. My boss also saw a pack of cigarettes in my car and was surprised that he’d never smelled it either.
And I don’t wash my hair for days at a time. (It’s really dry, but you’d think it would hold some of that smell)
[QUOTE=RedRosesForMe]
Yeah. I smoke, but before I did I dated a smoker, and except for a slight odor on the breath occasionally (which I didn’t find offensive) he didn’t reek. And now, as a smoker, I’ve only gotten comments on it twice- once while working in a bath and beauty products store, from a customer I was talking to, who obviously smelled it in contrast to the overpowering fruit smells around us.
And the other, right after I finished a cigarette and came back from my lunch break, from my office mate. She asked if I smoked, I responded in the affirmative, and she thought it was so odd because we’d worked together for months without her noticing it. My boss also saw a pack of cigarettes in my car and was surprised that he’d never smelled it either.
And I don’t wash my hair for days at a time. (It’s really dry, but you’d think it would hold some of that smell)
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Maybe it’s the brand of cigarettes or the amount you smoke.? I work with a few smokers. Most of them do not smell like smoke, even right after they come back in from a cigarette break. But one of them always has at least a slight cigarette reek and I can’t be near her after she comes back in from a smoke break or I’ll have an asthma attack because she smells so smokey. She is older than the others, so has been smoker longer, I think she smokes a lot more than them and I think she smokes a stronger brand of cigarette. Even the other smokers think she reeks of smoke.
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
Au contraire. Seven years gone here. I notice that breath smells within two feet, but not much else. I worked on a PC used for a couple of years by smokers, and it was pretty funky. Lest you say I’ve killed my senses, I can no longer eat hot and sour soup with impunity.
It’s those stinky folks who use too much perfume that irritate me!
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Well, we disagree on smoker reek but I agree about the perfume thing. Oddly amny of them are sokers as they can’t smell how much perfume cologne they have put on!
Sure the reek is directly related to hom many you light up and how often. If you smoke less than half a pack a day and have very good personal hygene some dudes might hardly notice. But if you are a 2 1/2 pack a day fiend, then you* will *reek.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
On Saturday, we were in the pet aisle of the supermarket and as I was putting a jug of cat litter into the cart I smelled a horrible smell. You know the smell when you forget you have clothes in the washer and they dry with that disgusting stink? That smell. It was incredibly strong. You could taste this smell.
“My god!” I exclaimed. “That smell! They must have gotten these bags wet or something.”
I pulled out the jug of litter and smelled it. I even smelled my own shirt, wondering if there could be some way I hadn’t noticed that smell earlier.
Then I noticed that my husband was looking a bit strange. “Don’t you smell that horrible smell?”
He looked to his right then said, in a low voice, “I think was that guy who just walked by.” I argued that there was simply no way that smell came from a person. It wasn’t a person smell.
We went down the aisle and around the corner, encountering the same horrific smell. This time it was obvious it was the guy. He was pushing a cart with a child in a car seat, and he was filthy. His pants looked like he had worn them through a a swamp. Maybe he had.
There’s little doubt he heard me.
I feel like a heel. I didn’t apologize. I wouldn’t even know how to apologize.
Would anyone else feel awful about this, or am I just being a neurotic freak again?
Edited to add: Three guesses what Lynyrd Skynyrd song I have running through my head.
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TRUE STORY: I once worked in a factory grinding metal plates. Needless to say we got black. I worked with a guy, let’s call him “John” who also worked there. In the year and a half I worked with John he NEVER changed clothes or bathed the whole time!!! To top it off he wore a tobagan all year round. This is the nastiest human I have ever seen in my life. You should have seen where he lived!
