The Stinky Kid

I resisted posting this because even thinking it made me feel petty enough to be back in 4th grade.  But seriously, yesterday I sat next to the smelliest person I've ever been lucky enough to smell.  I normally don't care about a stranger's level of cleanliness, maybe just pass it off as live and let live, but this dude was a biological weapon, and he was killing me.  He stunk in a way that would ruin your next two meals.  And all in a cinderblock classroom where the windows are riveted shut, the air doesn't flow, so the stink takes on a presence of a heavy who is holding your face in a barrel of rainwater.  Only not so clean and refreshing.  He smelled like the dark ages.  My dog never smelled this bad in salmon spawning season. 

There are two sides to this equation:

1-I should have said something to him.  Maybe using a bit more discretion than posting him in a blog, but he needs to know.  I'm not his friend, don't know his name, but as a decent act for him, me and all people everywhere, I shouldn't have let the stink go on stinking as if it didn't exist.  Am I a coward or is this normal fight/flight response to an olfactory crisis?

2-He should know better.  Soap isn't that expensive.  I really can't imagine that a person can smell that bad and not have a vague idea.  I don't think that humans by nature have a tendency to derive pleasure from fermenting themselves.  In that light, I think he might actually be an aggressive stinker, which brings me back to my first point.  Time to be a hero?  Is this my higher calling?

My dad passed along some wisdom that was passed on to him in a quiet corner of the Alaska state capitol:  It takes a while to realize that the guy who tells you your fly is unzipped is your friend.  Now maybe I was repulsed into just not wanting to be his friend.  Maybe...  And I could buy that.  Our smell is a presence that precedes and often trumps the other senses.  But no one else is taking on this task, so maybe it is up to me.  We'll see if it persists.  I'll let you know.

Until then, keep washing behind your ears like mom told you.  And for God's sake, if you're my friend and I show up stinking some day, let me know.