Everybody Stinks

I never really believed people when they told me that I would notice a significant change in my sense of smell after I quit smoking, but when I did quit and found that a whole new world of olfactory sensation had been opened to me I was forced to admit that I was wrong.
I just never realized quite how much my sense of smell had been dulled by the years of smoking.
Of course, the problem I encountered once my sense of smell became almost superhuman in comparison to how it had been is that everybody stinks.
There is the standard problem of body odor, but beyond that I’ve noticed how many people have bad breath, some of them to the extent that it clings to them, surrounding them as if have their own personal atmosphere.
And the problem with bad breath is that it seems impossible to mask it in any significant fashion.  A breath mint simply makes someone’s breath smell bad with a dash of mint; there is no real improvement to it.
I had noticed this problem before I quit smoking, but it’s become more evident since I quit.
Given the seeming prevalence of halitosis, what I’m probably noticing is simply the natural, normal odor of people in a way that I never noticed before, and maybe it’s just me that finds it so repellant given that I spend so much of my time alone and am therefore less accustomed to it.
On the flip side, I’m sure that I probably account for more than my fair share of unpleasant aromas, though I do try do what I can to limit the unpleasantness with deodorants and so forth.
Of course, that wasn’t the case this morning when I went for my walk, as I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth.
Our senses of smells and taste are very closely tied together, so using descriptions of scents to describe flavors, and vice versa, is actually a fairly valid practice.
That being said, this morning as I was walking, I noticed that my mouth tasted like an outhouse.  I pity anyone who might have gotten in the path of my breath.
That had to be the worst case of the “zactlies” I’ve had since I quit drinking.
(For those of you who may not know, the “zactlies” refers to the circumstance in which your mouth tastes ‘zactly like your ass)
In any case, I suppose that if there’s any point to this it’s simply that we all stink, which is hardly a new observation…
This morning after I got back from my walk and had brushed my teeth, I was sitting at my computer minding my own business when I was suddenly assaulted by a shrill, ear-splitting sound.
Bear in mind that “sitting at my computer minding my own business” typically means “sitting at my computer watching porn,” so when I heard that obnoxious noise I thought, “Oh crap; it’s the porn police!”
Then I realized that, for the time being at least, there is no such thing as “porn police,” and that the sound I was hearing was, in fact, my fire alarm.
And not just my fire alarm, but every fire alarm in the building.  
Recognizing that there probably was no fire, I took my time grabbing my shoes and keys, and, as I knew it would take a while before it could be determined conclusively that this was a false alarm and for the alarm to be shut off, I opted to grab my wallet as well and take the opportunity to drive over to Safeway to gas up before the price of gas goes up again.
After filling up my tank I drove around at random for a little while until I decided that it would be safe to go home again, and soon I was home and back to sitting at the computer minding my own business…
This weekend will find me being extremely lazy.
Because I’m not going in to work on Saturday and Sunday, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I won’t be working out on those days, and since I won’t be working out on those days, I decided that I won’t bother working out tomorrow, either.
So tomorrow I get to sleep in…until 5 AM, at any rate.
Of course, for you, the loyal Threshold reader, the most significant thing about my taking time off is that you will be treated to rare weekend entries!  Won’t that be exciting?
Oh wait, I phrased that wrong.  What I meant to say is that won’t be exciting.
In any case, I’ll likely be posting something tomorrow night, and of course I will be sure to tell you all about the Neil Gaiman signing on Saturday.