I am walking across a
parking lot full of cars, but, surprisingly, I am the only person for hundreds
of yards. As a matter of fact, I see no
one between the large lot and the brick building that is my destination. Still, I smell something. It’s a strong smell, overpowering; the stench
of young men’s cologne.
I am by myself. Clearly, it’s not coming from me.
A hot breeze is whipping
around the blind corner, and it brings with it a tsunami of Axe. Yup.
Axe. I recognize the horrid aroma,
the odiferous cancer of cologne that young men and eight year olds think makes
them attractive to females and slightly rabid muskrats. I know the smell because I work at a middle
school, and Axe was all the rage four years ago.
As I near the corner, the
stink hits me like a sucker punch. I
glance around. The nearest person to me
who is remotely in the correct wind position to be emitting such glandular hypocrisy
is walking about fifty yards away. He is
a skinny fellow, perhaps in his thirties or forties – far too old to be wearing
Axe (let alone bathing and soaking his laundry in the shit).
I see him cut into the
door in the same building as my destination but not the entrance where I am
heading. Thank God, I say out loud.
Axe makes me sick. It makes me
sneeze and it triggers migraines. I’m
sick enough without adding that to the mix.
I think I’m in the
clear. I check in, go find a seat, and
settle into the waiting game with my cell phone. I’m happily tapping away, minding my own
business, when I smell something. I’d
like to say it’s subtle at first, but it’s not.
It’s a smell so strong and so sudden that it could knock a buzzard clear
off a shit wagon at twenty paces.
Sitting in a chair about
ten feet away is Stinky Man.
For those of you who’ve
never had the pleasure of encountering Axe, it smells like a giant sweaty ass,
and not just any sweaty ass, but the world’s most odorous smelly ass you could
ever be horrified enough to encounter.
Imagine if Earth had a sweaty ass and it could be smelled from galaxies
away and you were standing right in Earth’s sphincter. That’s what Axe smells like. And now, Mr. Hanky Earth Sweaty Ass Stinky
Man is sitting close enough for me to perhaps be overcome by his glandular
oozing.
Thankfully, Axe Man is
called from across the large open hallway.
He is sitting on the wrong wing of the floor. Even more mercifully, I am called in to my
appointment, safely sequestered into a room with no outer windows or dangerous
intake vents connected to the hallway.
Although I do not see nor
smell the Axe-coated man again, the damage is done. Sitting alone in the cubicle, my eyes start
to water, I start to sneeze, and my head begins to hurt worse than when I
arrived. If I didn’t feel sick before, I
sure as hell do now.
Oh, well. Best to get used to it. School starts soon, and soon I’ll be inundated
with prepubescent males who are under the advertising-fueled impression that
they must coat themselves in an Axe shellac in order to attract the opposite
sex. I hate to be the one to break it to
them, but the only thing they’re going to attract are muskrats from the river.
My best advice to
them: If you need to get off the bus and
walk to your house more than twenty feet -- Run, little muskrat bait, run for
your ever-axing life.
