Tuesday, February 14, 2006

malodorous morning

no, I don't have bad gas this morning... but during my commute, I was assaulted by not one, but TWO people with horrendous odors. I'm sure they can't help it. One would assume that if you're leaving your house for the day, you've brushed your teeth fairly recently and used some sort of scented product for the remainder of your body. Maybe not for these two.

The first was on the bus from my house to the PATH. Boy was that bus crowded! I barely fit behind the yellow line, but I managed to squeeze in. The driver allowed one more gentleman to come on board, and we were all packed like sardines in the aisle, with him facing me.

And then I thought to myself - Halle? Are you on this bus? No doubt you're thinking I was hallucinating and thinking I'm riding the bus with non other than the Oscar winning actress. Sadly, no. I was not hallucinating. Sadly again, Halle Berry was not on my bus.

Halle Tosis, Y'all!

My "neighbour" on the bus had some stank breaf that had me beat down like a clown. Thank goodness I was only subjected to it for about 3 minutes. Then through a shrewd move, I managed to snag a recently vacated seat which meant no more Ms. Tosis.

So I get down into the PATH station and am like - OK , I'm getting a seat, the car is not 900 degrees, this commute is now going really well.

Not for long.

Then this little dude sits next to me. I am thinking I smell something. Ok - I'm not so unwell-traveled to understand different cultures have different notions of hygiene or that diet can affect body aroma signatures (body odor didn't seem to fit there, so I gay'd it up and made up that term! Maybe I AM more gay than Ricky, Elijah and/or Aaron...DEVIL!).

So let me sum up the odor for you:



















Yeah. Not exactly what shit I want to be smelling at 8:15 a.m. on mass transit. Not unless I'm about to mow down on a big juicy burger. But then, if I'm eating a burger in public at 8:15 a.m. on a weekday morning on mass transit, I suppose I have 2 or 3 other, more pressing issues I should deal with.

So I'm thinking - I should move. But then it subsided. Was I just used to it now? GOOD!

But wait... here it comes again.
There it goes. A few minutes pass.

Here it is again.

And again.

What is it?

Then I realize...





Wait for it...






HIS BREATH! Again, I feel like Nancy Kerrigan and want to scream, "why me? whyyyyyyyyyy?".

So now I hit assumptions phase and come up with two possibilities:

assumption one: this dude ate some righteous shit this morning and did not handle his business...

-OR-

assumption two: stank breath is the NORM for this dude and he STILL did not handle his business...

Either way, it reminds me of a story my brother once told me. He and his boyfriend went out to 1984 in the East Village for a night of dancing. Someone on the dancefloor had eaten sausage for dinner - and I do mean of the beef variety, not the tube steak/flesh pony kind. [gina's note: well, maybe he did consume both kinds of sausage. how are we ever really to know? but then again, who are we to judge?] How did they know, you ask? Did they recognize him from dinner previously?

Not such a happy ending. He was burping repeatedly and a pocket of the sweaty dance floor reeked like sausage.

Now all of this talk has me hungry -

LUNCH TIME!


2 Comments:

Blogger Lou said...

I took a very crowded subway ride home yesterday next a drunk(at 7!) couple who seemed to really like the fact that it was Valentine's Day. Each featured their own very distinguished odor.

Drunk people on the Subway I can kind of tolerate.
Smelly people I can kind of tolerate.
Combine the two and you get the evil eye.

February 15, 2006 4:51 PM  
Blogger Gina Bruce said...

remind me to give you the evil eye next time I see you.

February 15, 2006 5:50 PM  

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