As I said in my last post, I had to renew my first aid CPR card on Friday morning. Thankfully I made it to class in time at a local hospital, and as I said I was careful to choose where I sat and who I sat next to, because they make you pair up and work on eachother to some extent. I sat between a young woman who was a fitness trainer at a health club and a woman who worked at a bank. They were both good looking. I learned this lesson the hard way a few years ago. Here is what happened back then...The last time I went to first aid class I wasn't too happy about it. I was dreading it to be honest. The video they make you watch is terrible and I don't like getting that up close and personal with strangers, as you have to roll eachother over and do this and that. I'm not crazy about it. So I was careful to be very clean and I used extra dryer sheets on my clothes so I would smell good for whoever had to work on me.
At that time they held the class in a strip mall. It was crowded and only had one bathroom for everyone in the class. (Moving it to the hospital is a big improvement.) None the less I arived at the strip mall late as I had trouble finding it. I walked in and the place was packed. I could only see one empty chair so I moved my way down that isle to that chair and sat next to a really cute young woman with red hair. She was really nice, helped me find my place in the booklet, and I started to change my attitude. Things were looking up! We were packed in there like sardines though. There was one last empty chair next to me and it gave me just a little extra space as there wasn't any room for someone to actually sit there or so I thought. But this gal was cute and nice. I went from hating that I had to be there to thinking I'm going to enjoy this, especially when we get to work on eachother. It was a complete 180 in my attitude.
At that moment one last student arived and came and sat in the chair next to me on my right. She was a very big person and it was so packed that I couldn't avoid physical contact with her. The cute gal was next to a brick wall on my left so she was trapped. Then I noticed,.. the new gal had a very bad body odor that crept up on us. Not just underarm, it was a very bad outhouse smell for lack of a better way to put it! It was as if she just went to the bathroom right then and it didn't go away! It was really bad so perhaps she did go to the bathroom!
How quickly my fortune changed for the worse! The cute gal on my left moved as far away from me as she possibly could. She was glued to the wall. I was thinking that she must think it is me who smells! It all happend so fast I'm not sure she could distinguish if I smelled bad or the the new gal to my right was the culprit. From this point on in the story I'm going to call them the cute gal, and the smelly gal.
So now I'm totally freaking out! The cute gal won't even look in my direction and only moments before she was helping me with my booklet. Now she has her hand over her mouth and nose. I can't get any distance away from the smelly gal without compromising the space of the cute gal, and I'm working with just inches. So I move as far back as possible but the table behind me is like right there.
I couldn't focus on the material or the class at all. All I could think about is telling the cute gall I don't smell! I knew from taking the class before that the first section of the video was at least 20 min long, then we would have to get in small groups and work on eachother. The instructor was going on and on before he started the video. I sat there trying to think of a way to get a message to the cute gal that it isn't me who smells, but I can't come up with a way to do that. I tried by casually bringing my shirt sleeve to my nose. I did that over and over, but she wouldn't even look in my direction. I knew that we would have to work on eachother after the video and she would see that it isn't me who smells then, but that would be in 40 minutes and the smell was really really bad!
I thought about passing her a note, but I couldn't figure out how to word it. I DON'T SMELL, or I DON'T STINK, or even I SMELL GOOD (?) but then I wondered how she would take that. No verbage seemed to work, so I decided that a note was out of the question.
I thought about getting up and moving or leaving, but there was no place to move to, and if I left the cute gal would think I got up because I had to go to the bathroom! No,. I had to stay and convince the cute gal that I didn't stink.
Finally the video segment got over and the instructor told us to get in groups of 3s so we can work on the so called "log roll". We would take turns rolling eachother over on the floor to "clear the airway", something I desperately wanted to do at this point.
So naturally it was me the cute gal and the smelly gal. One person had to be the "victim" first, so I decide to be first. Believe me, I felt like a victim! The cute gal wouldn't work on me, and she still wouldn't even look at me, and I didn't blame her. So the smelly gal got down to roll me over. She rolled me over and my face ended up right in her butt! (I'm not kidding!) Then the instructor decided to tell a long story while my face is in her butt! It was horrible, and I didn't want to get her smell on me! Then the cute gall would think it was me who smelled by mistake! The longer the instructor went on with his story the more bad smell was getting on me!
Then I got to roll over the cute gal. I got as close to her as possible. So I rolled her over and I put my arm pit right in her face as I knew my shirt smelled good as I used an extra dryer sheet, and plus, I had fresh scent Speed Stick on. At my very worst, I smell better than the smelly gal. I did everything I could to rub up into her nose so she could smell how clean I was. Plus I knew that next she would have to roll over the smelly gal. And then I'd be vindicated! No way could the cute gal roll over the smelly gal without realizing it was her who smelled and not me!
So I let her up and she smiled at me. I think she got it, as I had been a little obvious about rubbing myself against her nose. She wouldn't even look at me before. Then she had to roll over the smelly gal. I was thinking, now she has to realize who smells for sure. When she got up from that, we looked at eachother and smiled. She got the message, and I'm sure that she knew what torment I'd been going trough. She was really friendly again after that, and went out of her way to even touch me and at the end of the class she helped me with my booklet again.
It was a big relief. There is something to be said for good hygiene. Soap isn't that expensive. Sometimes I smell, but for the most part I DON'T STINK.
2 comments:
That's a great story Don!
So what happened with the cute redhead?
I don't understand what it is with the people that have terrible personal hygiene. They're usually really big people, or they're socially misfit.
Sometimes I smell, like after a run. Sweat has an interesting, clean/dirty odor. But I take a shower right after I get home. So I'm clean again, and don't smell.
I don't mind if someone smells if they have been working out or at the end of the day or if they are an old person or homeless or something and can't help it. But I didn't think it was fair for the smelly gal to impose that on the people around her first thing in the morning. Now and then you come across someone who just doesn't try. Or perhaps they can't smell odors? It could be that she worked around smells so much that it became a non-issue for her. A lot of people who take that class work in constant care homes.
When it came time for me to leave, the cut gal was talking to the instructor and I got the feeling they went to the same church by what they were saying. So I left. I was just glad that she knew I didn't stink. I was glad to get out of there.
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