I have known some gentlemen in my life with filthy habits. Habits that would truly gag a maggot, as my father would say. As an example, I provide this recollection:
I once held a conversation with a particular gentleman who became so full of an insatiable curiosity about the state of his armpits, and whether they were sufficiently odourized, that mid-conversation he placed his fingertips beneath his pits, dug them around, withdrew them and filled his bronzed chest with their savoury scent. I know this sounds not unlike a Saturday Night Live character’s eccentric behaviour; but what this gent did, which trumps Mary Katherine Gallagher, was to recognize that his hands were now somewhat soiled with sweat. His solution was to then spit on his fingertips, rub it around, and then dry them on his socks. All without missing a beat in the conversation. To say that I had a focus issue during our discourse would be an understatement.
If that is a pig’s trick for personal hygiene, then what I witnessed at the gymnasium recently takes the whole goddamned cake. A small elderly Asian man a few lockers down from me–naked as the day he was born–decided, on what seemed to be a whim, to check whether it was time to do laundry. How he appraised the cleanliness of his wardrobe was to snatch his underpanties to his face, finger them until he lined up the posterior region, and bring them close enough to his face that had they been a stamp, he could have easily licked them. He took two very deep breaths–which is something I avoid around my own ass, or any of my own ass’ various unpleasant products–then scrolled his drawers so that he could give the crotch the benefit of all his olfactory senses as well. If I had have dropped dead at that very moment, the funeral director would insist to my parents that they opt for a closed casket; the look of disgust on my face would be so etched that even death could not erase it.
Some may be wondering what the final verdict was on the underwear, and to that I wish I had a conclusive answer, but I don’t. He simply tossed them into his locker and slammed it closed. If I were a betting man, I’d say that meant that they were good enough for a few more days wear and tear.
But really. . . if you’re going on smell alone, how large must be the margin for acceptance?