my UPS guy has BO

Ready to bash my brains out on my expansive cherry wood desk, simply to kill the boredom, you see, I dragged my bag o' bones out of its well-contoured chair and went off towards the restroom earlier, unaware of my own exquisite timing, my own horrible fate.

And as I trudge the length of the office, the obligitorily large office workers beaming at me as I successfully keep my own smile from curling into a sneer, I realize the extent of my exhaustion and blame that for my well-concealed contempt. Its hard to be nice when you're tired, right? Its hard to even know what nice or mean is when you're so tired you start making up words and laughing at yourself and wiping the drool off your chin at your desk-lunch before anybody sees it (you hope).

But there was a point to this, today, I think.

Oh yeah, the BO. I eventually got to the reception area, past the bouncy blonde 19-year old receptionist who Chooses the Right (to throw away our incoming faxes before delivering them), and out into the hallway, where I happened to cross paths with the smelliest man I have ever met.

I think he's a fairly, forgettably average joe; a balding man of medium height and build, clothed in brown shorts and shirt with a UPS logo emblazoned across the chest, but I really can't remember any visual details much more than the initial, vague impression; for as soon as I stepped into the hallway, I stepped into a wall of odor so pungent, so skunky, so fresh and tangy that I literally fought the urge to throw up, coughed two quick coughs of disbelief and lunged for the bathroom door.

Or maybe my body did, rather, because, like gunfights or armed robberies, it happend so fast I really don't remember much of it. I think it was pure survival instinct to rid my nasal passages of that acidic smell, to remove myself from the presence of this human crotchsmell factory, basically to get as far away as possible from the worst BO in history. A toilet stall was aromatic bliss after that hallway of nose-torture.

Sure, you think I'm exaggerating, and maybe I am, but this guy's BO is so bad it follows him around, trailing at least ten feet behind him at all times like a traditional Punjabi wife out walking behind her husband. I got into an elevator one day, on the first floor, after I saw him walking out of it. Big mistake. Huge.

His BO was lingering in that elevator, even seeming to get worse, after he had gotten off. And what happened? Of course, on the second floor, the elevator opened and a woman stepped on, immediately looking at me like I was an open can of SPAM left out in the Sahara for a few weeks. I had to try and defend myself. I shook my head vigorously and tried to choke down my giggles as I said, "It wasn't me, I swear, that UPS guy..." I'm not sure if she bought it, but we both stood there wilting in the barely intangible odors, like two cartoon plants wilting in green clouds of fart-smell.

But the weird thing is, his BO seems to have had a restorative effect on me, today. I smelled it on my way back from the restroom, even though the UPS guy was nowhere to be seen, and it was like someone had opened a huge pack of industrial strength smelling salts. I'm thinking more clearly and have a little bounce in my step now, all thanks to my UPS guy's BO. What a wonderful elixir, his stale sweat and funk, it seems to have made me a new man this molasses-slow Friday afternoon. I'm actually getting things done!

Thanks UPS guy, and for my job's sake, stay away from that bathtub!

-tn

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