I seem to be confronted with an unusual amount of smelly people lately - mainly on the bus or coming through my line at work. I don’t mean the smell of someone who’s sweaty from working hard, or someone who hasn’t showered in a couple of days. I mean the ripe horrid funk that hits you like a physical blow, sometimes causing you to take an instinctive step back. The kind of stench that seems to slowly fill the bus up with an invisible but ominous cloud, causing the other passengers to change seats and get as far away from the source as possible.
How do these people NOT know that they reek? I think people must grow accustomed to strong odors if they are exposed to them constantly, 24/7. Or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, I just hope they don’t sit next to me on the bus.
Alexx
I know what you mean, I cant stand being on a bus in the middle of downtown traffic and it takes forever to get to the next stop, where ofcourse i want to get off and wait for the next one… I am one for a new rule that the bus driver can tell someone not to get on if they smell to bad or are bothering people.
I used to have a bottle of air freshener near me at work for that kind of customer… and a small bottle of fragrance in my book bag for the bus… True …oh so true … LOL
I carry some sort of candy or lollys just in case one of these people come along. You can’t smell it that much if you’ve got some other taste in your mouth.
I recently went to Amsterdam for a weeks vacation. From Denmark to Amsterdam it was a 12 hour trip. We started at 7pm and the first 2 hours went fine, but then some german woman entered the 6 seats compartment, removed her shoes and let us enjoy her vile stinking feet. I and the girl with me, slept on the little passage way besides the compartments for the next 7 hours untill we changed trains.
Horrible… there should be a mandatory odour check before entering public transportation
I work for college therapists and we get some stinky kids in here, let me tell you. Heavy tobacco and no bathing for days is a bad combination. I have a plug-in in my office and a big old can of hospital grade air freshener. There is one kid so bad that if I see him coming I find a reason to leave my desk.
I experienced the stale tobacco/sweat yesterday on the train. This kid smelled as if he hadn’t showered in a few days, spent the last couple nights drinking whiskey, and smoked a pack right before he stood next to me. I’ll gross myself out sometimes after I’ve been cleaning the house, and reach up to get something so that my nose is right next to my armpit. I’ll have to try taking some hard candy with me; there’s nothing like public transportation in the height of summer. Or maybe I’ll stick a plug-in on my bag.
Working in a public library offers quite a wide assortment of opportunities to interact with smelly people. The main categories:
[ul][li]Newly adolescent young persons who haven’t yet adjusted to the fact that they now need to bathe every day.[/li][li]Homeless persons who, simply, don’t have the luxury.[/li][li]Aging persons who have lost the ability to accurately distinguish between how much cologne/perfume is enough and how much is enough already.[/ul][/li]Every single time I deal with a smelly person, I flash back to the scene in The Ice Storm where the kid is explaining how all smells are particulate. Ewwwwwwwww.
I’m a secretary at a law firm, and each secretary is assigned a file clerk to do her filing. My file clerk is a very nice woman, but she brings the most choking stink with her. It’s hard to describe, but it reminds me of the way my dog’s bedding smells when I haven’t washed it for six months. In addition, she is a chain smoker. The poor woman probably wonders why people leave their offices when she enters to look for files. Because my files are in cabinets just above and behind my heads, her pits are about two feet behind me as she works and I must get up and be elsewhere while she’s doing her job.
In fact, she’s due to come and work behind me in about one hour. I must find something important to do on the other side of the building by then . . .
My mother’s cousin (and I am not kidding here) carries a small bottle of fragrance with her for this reason. She has actually gone up to people who stink and sprayed them with it.
As a broke college student, my house was next door to this poor guy life had long since left behind. He was older, obese and restricted to crutches or a wheelchair that he would push backwards with his one good leg to the store. He was pitiful, lonely and loved to talk. He’d usually ambush me as I came home from class and I’d humor him for an hour or so every day. I don’t know if in that long year we wre neighbors if he ever took a single bath. His aroma was horrid and you had to carefully position yourself upwind. I can still remember his smell vividly, even though I’ve not seen him in 20 years. The experience provided me with the resolve to make sure no one I care about ever ends up in the same mess.
That could get you a huge lawsuit and (juristiction permitting) assault charges. Some people are violently allergic to artificial fragrance. I am one of them.
Spraying me would result in hospitalization and possibly permanent scarring. In the past, exposure to fragrance left me with a debilatating migraine (that sent me to hospital), weeping blisters, and dehydration from repreatedly vomiting.
I would not hesitate to pursue it to the fullest extent of the law if someone sprayed me with fragrance.
I wouldn’t recommend the practice whether you have the courage to do it or not.
That reminds me, there was a newspaper story a couple of years ago about a man who had been sprayed by a skunk one morning. Due to some accident, the poor guy has no sense of smell and had no idea.
He took public transportation to work – and no one said anything! When he arrived at work and saw all his co-workers recoil, he realized there was a problem. His boss sent him home to bathe in tomato juice and the guy’s wife had to help him out because he couldn’t tell if he was still stinky or not (they had a great picutre in the paper of the guy’s wife pouring a bowl of juice over his head as he sat in the tub.)
Canadians are known to be a polite bunch, but you’d think that someone (ie/ the bus driver) would have at least mentioned something to the poor guy.
Wow - I’m intrigued by this tomato juice bath! Have never heard of that, but you say that as though it were one of those really obvious things, Charmian
Ugh. Alexxandra, I feel for you. That was me in the summer of '96. I had to take the bus to work in a university library. One notorious fellow we had to deal with on a regular basis was simply known by us employees as “The Russian Guy.” Not only did he have an overpowering reek, but he was an a$$hole as well. He was always asking for the Russian newspapers, and would chew us out horribly if the newest ones were “late” (For whatever reason, all the Russian papers would come to the library in a big clump all at once. Once we got them, we’d check them in and put them on the shelves. No matter how often our boss would try to explain this, he’d accuse us students of hiding them. :rolleyes: ) If the papers he wanted happened to be there, he’d spend hours in the small, poorly ventilated newspaper room reading them. Ugh. That room was polluted for hours afterwards, and I had to go in there because it was my job!
A day that featured a smelly guy on the bus paired with an altercation with The Russian Guy was a very poor day indeed.
Now, this is something I learned today - not everyone knows about bathing in tomato juice for skunk spray accidents! It is common knowledge everywhere I’ve lived (across Western Canada).
