A friend excused herself from the table, and I was sure it was so that she could get away from me, me and my smell of medieval death.
I distinctly remember the smell of a particular taxi from when I was in Manhattan a few years ago.
Unfortunately it was not exotic and evocative; it was simply the pungent odor of the driver, combined with a cheap cologne that was reminiscent of vinegar and not up to the task of disguising the smell.
He was a pleasant man, friendly and blessed with a warm voice, but the smell made me feel claustrophobic and vaguely suicidal.
I stopped my ride a few blocks short of my destination to escape his inversion layer, and found that I was sweating even though it was a cold evening in March. A sense of paranoia engulfed me: did I smell like that now? Was I marked?
Retrieving the hand sanitizer from my purse, I madly rubbed it into my skin like I was Lady Macbeth; I briefly considered ingesting it, thinking it might burn its way out of my strangled pores.
Meeting with friends, I spent the evening distracted and uneasy: could they smell it? Were they simply being polite and not telling me that I smelled like gypsy ass and cloves?
A friend excused herself from the table, and I was sure it was so that she could get away from me, me and my smell of medieval death.
I left the gathering early: I could not be in the moment when the moment smelled like this. Back in the hotel I took a long hot shower and used an entire travel bottle of shampoo. When I checked out for the airport in the morning I left those clothes of shame behind for the hotel to burn.
Unfortunately it was not exotic and evocative; it was simply the pungent odor of the driver, combined with a cheap cologne that was reminiscent of vinegar and not up to the task of disguising the smell.
He was a pleasant man, friendly and blessed with a warm voice, but the smell made me feel claustrophobic and vaguely suicidal.
I stopped my ride a few blocks short of my destination to escape his inversion layer, and found that I was sweating even though it was a cold evening in March. A sense of paranoia engulfed me: did I smell like that now? Was I marked?
Retrieving the hand sanitizer from my purse, I madly rubbed it into my skin like I was Lady Macbeth; I briefly considered ingesting it, thinking it might burn its way out of my strangled pores.
Meeting with friends, I spent the evening distracted and uneasy: could they smell it? Were they simply being polite and not telling me that I smelled like gypsy ass and cloves?
A friend excused herself from the table, and I was sure it was so that she could get away from me, me and my smell of medieval death.
I left the gathering early: I could not be in the moment when the moment smelled like this. Back in the hotel I took a long hot shower and used an entire travel bottle of shampoo. When I checked out for the airport in the morning I left those clothes of shame behind for the hotel to burn.
I used to have the much the same problem till I found out that my "antiperspirant" was actually just deodorant. I smelled like pit-sweat and Brut for the longest time!
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