Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A Public Apology...


to the Rocker/Hipster who boarded the #8 bus the other morning and who I silently berated for his apparent nasty, foul body odor. It was about 8:45am and somewhere around John and Broadway a number of people boarded the bus and headed for the back where I was seated. Tragic Rocker/Hipster guy with shaggy hair, excessive piercings and be-chained wallet sits next to me and I'm overwhelmed by a wave of body funk. I curse him, sotto voce, and wince and begin breathing through my mouth for the next 15 blocks when I can escape from his barrage of crotch odor at my designated stop on Dexter. I curse not so sotto when he, too, gets off at that stop and boards the #26 with me for a journey to Fremont, but I do not sit anywhere next to him. I pray that I never see, or smell him again.

Today, I'm sitting in nearly the same spot at the same stop where Stinky Rocker boarded the other day, when a number of people board the bus and file past me on their way to seats at the very back. All of sudden, I'm hit with a Proustian reminder of the previous malodorous trip, but it's not the scent of Madeleines that I smell. Only, this time, my Rock Nemesis is not anywhere in sight but there IS a familiar face from the previous journey: a middle aged man, neatly groomed in a trench coat and carrying a briefcase and a professorial air about him. He had been seated across from me on the previous journey, and today he was standing directly behind me and the stench of unwashed genitalia was wafting from the confines of his knock-off Burberry. It hadn't been the seemingly obvious culprit, Rockstar McHipster with the nasty hair and ratty denim jacket, but the well-combed, Professor Stinky McGaypants who had odorifically raped me with his manstench.

So, I apologize to my Linda's/ChaCha/Comet hanging out friend and instead will focus my hate and loathing to the old Grampa guy who can remember to comb his hair but can't seem to get the hang of using a little Axe bodywash to clean the cooties off his cooter.

NOTE: when you type in "Stinky" to Google Images, you will get some truly horrifying results...

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