When I was in eighth grade, I had one friend. This other kid was a loner like myself. He was the fat kid with the big mouth. His parents were divorced and remarried which wasn't all that common in the mid to late '80s. How I came to be friends with this chum and exactly what I saw in him (and vice versa), I'll never know. The one common interest that we shared was comic books. Other than that...?
One evening, my friend and I were traveling with my parents here in town. I don't know if we were headed back home, but based on the road we were on and the direction we were traveling, at this point in the future, I have to assume so. He and I were in the back seat of the car hamming it up. I remember the exact location during this particular evening because of what happened next.
Unexpectedly, he turned to me and said, "Rob, your breath smells like rotting flesh."
My parents laughed heartily at this. I feigned amusement as everyone enjoyed some humor at my expense. This was an insightful moment for me.
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There were three (or maybe four) exchange students that joined our architecture school class during one semester of perhaps third(?) year. These students were from Spain, if I remember correctly. Three of our Mississippi students went away to study abroad as well (though not necessarily to Spain) during this same period.
None of the Spanish students could speak English well enough to communicate effectively (or at least this is how they presented themselves), therefore the degree of interaction between us students was negligible. Our professors eventually gave them their own assignments which they were juried on within private critiques. Part of the reason for this was simply because they had to return to their homeland earlier than our semester allowed.
The jury room in the College of Architecture had a balcony. And it happened to be open during one of the exchange student's final critique. I quietly entered the room only to have my breath taken away by the overwhelming stench of body odor that had permeated the entire volume of the space. It was horrendous. I have never experienced such revolting olfactory sensations in my life.
I went over to the guard rail and looked down in an attempt to locate the perpetrator. The young, overweight Spaniard being drilled was sweating profusely from the hot PAR lamps that were burning brightly within the rows of track lighting above his head. His dark, unkempt mane and three day beard, I believe, revealed his recent hygiene regimen. I quickly exited the room holding my breath until I reached the corridor beyond.
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As a licensed professional, I'm required to obtain a certain number of continuing education credits. I was a certified lighting designer as well as an architect when I was in the private sector, therefore many of the classes I would choose to attend were related to lighting design of some sort. On one particular occasion, I attended an all day class that happened to be hosted within a relatively old building (for the USA) that had recently been converted to a small boutique hotel. The space that the class was held in was overall dimly lit and poorly ventilated, though the furnishings / finishes were all new.
At the end of the day, as I usually do at the end of every seminar I attend, I walked to the front of the room to thank the presenter and ask a few questions. A few students had reached the man before I could. Once I was within six to eight feet of the group, a wall of body odor stench hit me hard enough to almost knock me to the floor. I deduced that it was the presenter as I could tell now that he'd been sweating profusely from within his suit underneath the hot track lighting.
I promptly exited the seminar room.
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The boy that I befriended in junior high school also attended Shotokan karate classes with me every Tuesday and Thursday after school. After purchasing a couple of comic books at the local drugstore, we'd return to the aerobics studio where the classes were held and change into our gi. At this particular time of day, there weren't any other classes in session, therefore the bathrooms were empty. He and I would hastily change out of our school clothes and into our white uniforms sans shoes or socks. My buddy's feet had a tendency to reek once they were exposed to the open air. He was sensitive enough to this that he'd try anything to defuse the aroma. On one occasion, he lathered his feet with liquid hand soap he acquired from the wall hung dispenser, rinsing them off afterwards in the lav. His attempt to scrub away the odor only mutated it. His feet ended up smelling like sweaty medicinal perfume. Even today, I continue to pity the poor soul that ended up next to him in class during our floor stretching routine.
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When I was in first year architecture school, I had a professor who would literally move his stool back from my drawing board a few feet in order to avoid my fleshly breath, prior to him getting an update on my work. The man was constantly sucking on cough drops. Looking back, I wonder why he didn't just offer me one instead.
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During one of my routine dental visits many years ago, I ended up with a very frank hygienist. She asked me if I knew why I had such bad breath. I was amazed at her candor. Her solution was for me to floss daily.
She was only half right.
