I actually showered today, which was a plus, but I forget the anti-perspirant, a minor setback. While at Borders, writing, I realized among all the unemployed, that I’d busted a pit.  I smelled like a ripe roasting pan in a non-thanksgiving way.  I had my stink on, and I wondered if I was suddenly more desirable.  There’s something alarming about European women with leg and armpit hair, something rustic and unfeminine, animalistic and base.  I already had the unsightly backpack working in my favor; perhaps my natural odor was releasing other sexual undertones on the level of pheromones.  I’ll say it now, I’ve never ever been attracted, on any level, to a man with wretched keytone breath or ripe pits, but there is a musk that sometimes mixes with the scent of saliva, an overworked hunter smell, that makes me feel alive and in the moment.  It’s something you feel someone should apologize for, but nothing is said aloud.  Everything else is said in that.

I knew I’d be coming home alone, so I stopped at a pharmacy, purchased some Dove Solid Stick, and went to town, right there.  “Look, I can’t stand to be near myself, so I’m doing this right here and now.”  I then whipped the deodorant from it’s brown bag and wiped it across my pits several times in front of the store clerk.  “My God, you have no idea!”  I said with a sigh of relief, then smiled.  “Have a good night.”  I now smell like an air freshener.  Spring Breeze.  I’m not quite sure what’s worse.