Wanted: Personal Force Field

I haven't blogged in a while and I think it's time I did. This time I feel like going with a rant post (the crowd gasps). I know, I know--Sometimes it seems like half my posts are ranting and raving about something or someone.

This time the subject is smell.

Anyone that knows me knows that I have a good sense of smell. Okay, I'm getting older and it doesn't work nearly as good as it once did, but it's still annoyingly sensitive sometimes. When you couple that sensitivity with something that I don't like, a rant is inevitable.

There is a guy at work that works (ha!) in the area that I inhabited when I was first employed at LaCroix Industries: The packaging area. He is probably my age, but I'm not sure. He may be 40 going on 70 for all I know. Like most of our employees, he smokes. By the nature of his cough he has smoked for the duration of 2 or 3 lifetimes all rolled into one. He coughs so bad that I feel like I might have to help him stuff his lung back into his body any moment. Even Phil (one of the owners) who only has one lung doesn't cough that badly.

But I've digressed.

The point of this post is the smell. His smell. Most mornings he bathes in some noxious substance that I can smell at least 20 feet away. Really. To me it's a hideous smell, but he apparently calls it cologne or deodorant. I don't want to ask him what it is, but I'm suspecting it's Axe. I could find out by sniffing a container of said product next time I'm out in a store, but I'm somewhat afraid at the rush of bad karma that might flood over me if it's a match. Because I don't work near him, it's generally not a problem, but every time I walk by I have to literally hold my breath for a distance until it's save to once again breathe the usual dirty air in our plant.

Now let's add Heather to the mix.

She is a young gal--About 22 or 23--And she wears her own brand of scent. You guessed it--Also strong. Normally I like women's scents. I find them interesting. Sometimes they don't work and sometimes they do. Although her scent doesn't really do anything for me, I don't find it offensive. But I do find it strong in the morning.

Here's the problem: Both of them work in the same area most of the day. When you combine the scents (I use that term loosely) of the two of them together, it results in a combination that I find unbearable.

I call it noxious soup. It borders on toxic.

I can't for the life of me figure out why someone would use so much of something like that. Are they olfactory-challenged? They can't smell anything? If that's the case, perhaps what they do is their way of making sure nobody around them can smell anything either. I have read that there are schools in the US where teachers have literally banned the use of Axe by students in their classroom. Like those teachers, I just want to be able to enjoy tolerate my job. Keep your environment to yourself. Please.

Oh wait--While I'm on that subject... Let me rant momentarily about his (yes, that same guy) radio. In addition to his obvious burned out lungs and burned out nose, his hearing is apparently gone as well. He has a little bitty radio that sounds badly "tinny". When you couple the fact that he apparently has trouble hearing the terrible tinny sound of his tiny little radio wannabe, the effect is yet another assault on the senses. Believe it or not, I can hear it over 50 feet away where I sit.

Okay, I'm done now. (deep breaths) Thank goodness it's the weekend.