I'll preface this blog with the fact that I don't wear much cologne. I'm pretty sensitive to smells (especially cologne and cigarette smoke) and most cologne is just too strong for me. It tends to penetrate that spot right behind my eyeballs and makes me want to bleed out of the top of my head. I tell you that to tell you this:
Yesterday morning Dad and I went to do some work for this old guy named Benny who's known Dad for a long time. We weren't there long...just long enough to prime and paint a couple of patches in his living room. We got there a little before 9 and Benny informed us he had a dental appointment and retreated to his bedroom to get ready.
Apparently while he was in there he spilled a bottle of old-man cologne and then rolled around in it (I don't know what brand it was, but you know what I mean...that stuff old men love to wear that smells like they got a liter of it for 99 cents at CVS). It was horrible. Horrible. And when he came back out from his bedroom, it was worse. It filled the house and there was no escaping it. I could see the vapors rising off him like the heat on a highway on a hot summer day.
But I didn't say anything and just kept listening to my iPod and working away like a good little Doozer.
I was enjoying a nice remix of "Kung Fu Fighting" from a UK Now compilation when suddenly Benny steps right up beside me out of nowhere. While I'm working I only listen to my iPod with one ear bud and keep the volume very low so I can still hear what's going on around me, and this big doofus still managed to sneak up on me.
He said, "This is so all the ladies will attack you today" and the next thing I knew he was spritzing me with this horrendous cologne. He sprayed me three times, right in the middle of the chest, from only about an inch away. Then he started laughing his fat head off and I was instantly pissed. My day was ruined almost before I even knew what was happening.
Immediately my head started to throb. I just looked at him like "What the..." and he continued to laugh. He looked at Dad with a "Pretty good one, huh?" kind of look and I could tell Dad was on my side.
Fortunately, we were almost finished. I was wearing three layers at the time: a long-sleeved shirt, a t-shirt on top of that, and a hoodie sweatshirt on top of that. I started taking our stuff back outside to the truck and while I was out there, took off the hoodie and the t-shirt. I threw them in the back of the truck hoping the bitter 17-degree weather would help get rid of the smell. In the meantime, I still reeked. Despite the fact that I had on three shirts when I was maced, the bottom shirt was still wet from the spray (that's how close he sprayed me).
What the freak, dude? Why would you do that? And with something that smells like liquid angst? And I just did laundry!
After we were all finished working and I had taken everything outside to the truck Dad stayed and chatted with the guy for a few minutes. I stayed outside in the cold in the hopes of diluting the smell quickly. But no such luck.
When Dad came out he jokingly told me "You're riding in the back". I was glad to know that Dad also thought that guy had been pretty rude and he started getting a headache from the smell, too. So that was nice in a misery-loves-company kind of way. All the way home we hated on the guy and I called him bad names and Dad laughed.
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