A smelly story

Sometimes you can find yourself in socially awkward situations.You sometimes might notice things amiss in people we are with,if it's really a friend you can go ahead and tell him or her things like "Hey,there's cat poop in your hair" or "Hey smartguy,your fly's down" or "you still have that sale sticker on your skirt girl" before you proceed to laugh.It's not that tough to straighten things up with people who you know will not misunderstand you.But with collegues and people who you work with it can get complicated. You just can't walk in and say things like that because you never know how they are going to take it.Maybe lot many would be happy you brought such a thing to their notice before it became a standing joke amongst other collegues and saved them from embarassment but few other might get so offended they might go shoot the messenger down. There are topics which can be dealth with panache with them but there are some topics which people are not so keen to touch.Some topics are considered sensitive and some wouldn't even want to touch it with a barge pole.

One such taboo topic is "bad breath",you might have come across someone maybe a spouse,collegue,friend who has this notorious breath that can knock out people in a second. The man himself would be so totally unaware how repugnant he is on the olfactory senses of other people. If you were aware that your breath stinks then you would probably take note of it and take some measures to reduce it either by visiting the dentist and knocking him down first,or getting your grubby hands on those breath mints and all the treatments known to man to avoid being a social outcast. But when it comes to telling a collegue not many people want to tread that path of being the one who bells the cat,or in this case probably offer the cat a pack of menthos.I don't want to even start the thing about body odor,the smelly socks,reeking perfumes!What is it with smelly people?Are their olfactory senses on an indefinite hunger strike?

There was a time when we had 3-4 such smelly people at work around me. I always felt like that little boy in sixth sense uttering in that hushed tone "I see smelly people,they are all around me.Walking around like regular people. They can't smell anything about them.They don't know they're so repulsively smelly". We, meaning the collegues assaulted by this war on our senses decided something had to be done.Someone had to inform these people how they needed to do something drastic about their odor crisis.

We came up with few steps.And we decided on a plan,laid the ground work and set to it.

1.We went the usual way around with the body -odor guy and gifted him a deo for his b'day-He was pretty pleased with it but no effect,we came to know later his younger son liked it way more than him so he gave it to his son!

2.We would offer the breath guy some mints everytime he came to talk to us-This guy would refuse it everytime we offered saying he doesn't eat "candies" we tried to tell him these were no damn candies but he would say his dentist has warned him against eating any such sweet stuff and so its good even for us to avoid them!!(this dentist sure sounded like a masochist)

3.We left anonymous notes on their desks about how someone thinks their odor is bad-all the notes used to be found stuffed into the wastepaper baskets and that resulted in more onions and garlic in his diet,he would say this is his way of getting back at those liars who seem to be spreading rumors behind his back about his breath being nasty,we almost died!First just bad breath,imagine bad breath combined with onion and garlic,it surely was the most powerful anaesthetic known to man,people went into a state of suspended animation just in a matter of seconds talking to the man!

4.When all subtle hints failed we had to talk to them.We chose the oldest of the group to go and do this dirty job.Ultimately long story short,one guy got thoroughly offended,one more took it on his stride,one more apologized.Note only one took measures to get rid of the problem.Perhaps that doesn't speak highly of our communication skills at that time but hey we tried!

Now I have heard there are some sites which even offer to send anonymous emails to such cases,there is even an anonymous phone call offered on these sites and if you are not such a cheapo as to go for the free ones you can shell out a $5 extra and get the whole package.It comes fully equiped with a pack of breath mints,a personalized anonymous message including shipping and handling.We live in such a packaged world !there's a rejection hotline ,even breakup hotline where you pay and the message gets delivered!How lazy can people get?

Anyway what's your smelly story?(isn't virtual world anyway grand in the sense we are really odor free)How did you guys deal with such sticky situations and what would you do if you were to deal with a smelly collegue?My hubby is having a tough time dealing with a smelly collegue right now.Perhaps he can use your advice:)

Have a odorfree absolutely delightful weekend everyone!