The great stink

Major dilemma: my cubicle smells like pooooo. It may sound like I’m going for a cheap laugh by writing that (it doesn’t get any cheaper than using the word “pooooo”), but my cubicule really does smell like someone broke wind somewhere and then did a half-ass job of trying to ... cover up. When I opened sat down this morning, it was like getting hit in the face with an old sock, so much so that I let out an audible “Ech” in the otherwise silent office area, prompting our group administrative assistandt to say, “Is something wrong, Scott?”

I did some searching and it doesn’t appear that there’s any sort of visible poooo stain. As a veteran of secretly breaking wind then ... crop dusting, I checked all the spots I might hide something yucky if I had to do so in the office - under my desk, on the other side of my desk, in one of my drawers, all over because I couldn’t move anywhere fast enough - but nothing.

However, it still reeks really bad. My manager came into the office this morning and immediately made a face of disgust - a face not like one would make if they caught their parents making love, but maybe a face they’d make if they caught their weird hipster cousin giving her tattooed/pierced boyfriend a handjob in the yard after Thanksgiving dinner (and no, this didn’t happen to me althrough I do have a 3rd cousin twice removed that well I wish I could play West Virginian with). Anway sensing my manager passing judgment on me we had this exchange:

Me: “Do you smell that?”
Manager: “Yeah, it stinks.”
Me: “I don’t know what it is.”
Manager: [believing it is me, trying to diffuse the situation] “It’s not a big deal.”
Me: [getting defensive] “When I came in this morning, it smelled like this.”
Manager: [having no interest in arguing with a smelly person] “Really, it’s not a big deal.”
Me: [more defensive, hyper] “Oh, I know it’s not a big deal. I’m just surprised by the smell like this, because this isn’t coming from me.”
Manager: [uncomfortable, silence for two seconds] “So can you swing by my office when you get a chance?”

So my manager thinks I smell like poooooo. Great.

About an hour after this encounter, we had our weekly update meeting. I love the meetings, because I feel so important: sitting around the conference room overlooking a picture of Manhattan with the Twin Towers in the big comfy chair, all the while scribbling things down and drinking water, looking serious, smart, important. Sure, I may actually be thinking about how getting high in my bathtub, but whatever or getting my buzz on at Dee's Cafe.

This meeting was different though because a short time after plopping down in the comfy chair, I noticed that smell again. Whatever the source of this stink, it had now transferred itself to the conference room. Althrough this time it was more then just I and manager. So the whole time I sat through the thirty-minute meeting, I was sweating (more than usual) and worried that someone would say, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but does anyone smell that? It smells like someone drank a quart of semen and an onion and then threw it back up.” Fortunately, no one said anything.

But the whole experience made me VERY self-conscious perhaps it was me. Was it really me that smelled like stale poooooo/puke? I checked my breath and it seemed fine, but I brushed my teeth anyway. I smelled my pits and they seemed ok, so that now I have a nice half-inch thick layer of white covering my armpit. My only guess was that it could be my pants, because I just got them dry-cleaned. I tried smelling them, but I could only smell my well you know.

Running out of options, I made a decision: I would get something pungent for lunch, hoping that the smell of the lunch would essentially cancel out the smell the of pooooo. Not knowing what else to get, I decided to go with tuna.

Terrible, terrible decision.

It didn’t work at all, and instead added another awful smell to the mix. As it stands right now, I’m sitting in the office which smells like pooooo and tuna.

So that’s my day. How is yours going?