Wil o’ the Whiff

My sense of smell is pretty acute, though obviously from a dog’s point of view it’s actually pathetic.

However, I am sure most of us have had an encounter of the smelly kind and in some instances have found it almost impossible to hide our reaction.
This is the obvious, and when there are three of you in the room, you can usually get away with implying someone else is the culprit. In households with dogs or cats as pets, they get the blame though don’t they.

This is probably the second most popular contender.
My Dad suffered terribly with smelly feet. He’d take his shoes off and you could hear his toes sigh in relief then the green haze would rise off his socks as the smell of rancid blue cheese filled the air.
Mine aren’t exactly rosy either, especially if they’ve been stuck in trainers all day, and Hubby will readily admit that sometimes his socks will walk themselves to the wash bag!

Number three on my list is halitosis.
Sometimes this can’t be helped no matter how careful you are with your diet and oral hygiene. One of my early bosses had garlic with practically everything, and the morning ‘Hello, how are you today?’ was received some fifty yards back.
In the 90s when it was suggested I took garlic capsules to help my blood pressure, I armed myself with bags of mint imperials, though I was later told that the capsules were odourless, but if I was that worried about it, a good counter remedy was parsley.

Number four is something your best friend may or may not tell you.
Our bodies smell, period. Diet, health, perfumes, deodorant, soaps, all play a contributory factor, plus of course our biological make up. Much to Hubby’s relief in the early days, expensive or exotic fragrances always went sour on me, so he saved a fortune by not feeling the need to buy Chanel or Oskar de la Renta perfumes for me.
I know of two instances of going too far the other way, one guy overdosing on his use of BRUT (something I never liked anyway, much refer the original Old Spice) and a lady I worked with in the late 60s who loved Rapture by Avon. So much so, she had every product in the range, and wore them all……… at the same time.

My biggest hate is related to the above, and it is somewhat hypocritical to a degree as I used to be one of them (but then you never notice that about yourself do you).
I will pick up on it in supermarkets, shops, church, even the hospital grounds.
Today as I was out with the dog, several people came up to me to chat and make a fuss of her. One lady stopped me in the street to say she saw me walking her every day and thought how well behaved she was off lead. She told me where she lived and it’s in one of the houses in the Avenue. I pass it twice if I do the figure of eight route and this past week I’ve taken Maggie there at least twice a day. She herself has a 13 year old rescue lurcher they’ve had for 11 years.

Each one of these people was a smoker and I just hope my nose didn’t wrinkle too much as I politely passed the time of day as we made conversation.

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