A Whiff of
Reality
by Wesley
Freeman
I have made an
important discovery. When a man decides not to
use deodorant, he is condemning himself and those
around him to an unpleasant nasal experience. I
know this seems like a fairly stupid thing for me
to discover, but before you pass judgment, let me
elaborate a little as to why I have found this to
be so fascinating.
First off, I
almost never go without deodorant. If I do decide
to venture unprotected, it is rarely for more
than a day, and those such occasions are
invariably associated with camping or some other
such smelly activity. As a result I have never
really had an opportunity to explore how one can
be fully washed, yet still exude an odor of cat
crap. So it was a new discovery for me to find
that regardless of how I may bathe, the lack of
an underarm deodorizer progresses from the mildly
offensive to rank nasty. The resulting smell from
an ill conceived movement of ones arm can
practically knock a person to the ground.
Why on earth
do our pits stink so bad? There are lots of fancy
answers to this question. My favorite is that the
fatty, oily sweat that normally resides around
our butts also comes out from under our arms. Was
this one of God's little jokes, or an
evolutionary form of convenience? I guess if we,
like dogs, had to smell between each other's legs
all the time, the result would probably be many
socially awkward moments, and the occasional back
problem. Hence the convenience of the armpit.
But really, is
there an advantage to being able to smell each
others' body odor? Sometimes I wonder if there is
some suppressed form of olfactory communication
that we are missing out on. I mean, you do learn
a lot about your buddies when you are sitting
around farting at each other. Maybe we could
sense each others moods or something. Might be a
tad inconvenient during poker games. “It
smells like baby vomit in here; Frank must have a
good hand.” But just think of the advantage
guys could have when trying to understand the
complexities of female emotions. “She says
nothing is wrong, but given the faint aroma of
wet goat, her day must have been worse than she
is letting on.”
I guess it is
unlikely that the next societal movement is going
to be to fling out the deodorant. But at least I
can be satisfied that the practice of rubbing a
sticky substance under my arms everyday has a
useful purpose. I wonder if a similar technique
could be used to deodorize my buddies' farts?
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