What's That Smell?

Sometimes you just come up empty handed. No matter how resourceful you are, you sometimes stumble into a situation that stinks, and there is no easy way out. That was me yesterday...literally stinking up the place. I ran on my lunch hour, outside. It was hot and sunny. I’ve conditioned myself to run in warm weather so I can tolerate up to about 92 degrees, but I sweat like a hooker in Sunday school. I sweat like a man. Really. Back sweat, scalp sweat, pit sweat, drip between the boobs sweat, belly sweat. Even need new underwear sweat. It was about 90 yesterday when I ran, so I was dripping wet when I got back to our building. To make matters worse when I hit our air conditioned building, my sweat glands hit overdrive trying to adjust to the cool air, and started spewing overtime from every pore. It’s not very pretty, and I could smell myself, so I know others could, too. Usually, this isn’t a problem because we have a locker room with showers, and I can shower and freshen up before going back to work. I have done this hundreds of times. I have refined my routine so I can maximize my workout during lunch, so imagine my surprise when I hit the shower nozzle and it didn’t come on. Well, it spit out about five drops and started sucking air. Hmm, something must be broken, I thought. Not to fear. I’ll use the second shower, I thought smugly. I twisted the nozzle on the second shower. Same spit. Same sucking air. Crap! Self, I said, you could be in a pickle.

Not wanting to roam our hallways in a sticky sports bra and shorts, I slipped my head into the door of the lunch room and asked if we were having a little water problem. By the look on everyone’s face, I knew that once again I had been last on the gossip chain and had missed the news about the broken water heaters. It seems they had turned off the water on that end of the building to repair them. The only good news was that I had not stripped off naked before trying the shower. Otherwise, I would have bared it all for the men working above the ceiling.

I don’t live close enough to drive home and shower. My only option was to slink into a bathroom in another part of the building and wash off in the sink like a homeless person in Grand Central Station. It was not that effective in killing my stink. The deodorant cover-up didn’t help much either. I hid out in my office the rest of the afternoon trying not to get too close to anyone. Thank goodness I didn’t have any appointments. I’m in public relations for heaven’s sake. To make matters worse, I had a meeting at church right after work, so I got to stink up two places instead of one.

From now on I will check the showers BEFORE I run, but from the ribbing I’ve taken so far today, I’m afraid I’ve added a chapter to the list of stories my coworkers will use to roast me with at my retirement dinner. Sometimes life stinks.