Fish Urine

I don’t spend my time asking people just how they clean themselves. Perhaps someone should though and it might be an idea to license people so that everyone would have a basic standard of cleanliness. It wouldn’t be hard to enforce, the Klean Kops would just have to spend their days on the bus, in elevators or the subway. Pretty much any enclosed area would do.

I am not sure what they would do when confronted with someone that emanates a toxic aura. They could carry one of those large weed sprayer backpacks filled with some kind of chemical deodorizer and hose the offending person down. That might be a little much. Perhaps a couple of squirts with “Ocean Fresh” Fabreeze would be a good temporary fix. I was in a store recently, waiting in line behind a gentleman that had probably never been introduced to a bar of soap. I suppose this guy might have an allergic reaction to soaps, perfumes, toothpaste, mouthwash and laundry detergent.

I accept a certain odour from people who have been working all day whether in an office, warehouse or on a job site. Sweating is the way we humans cool off our bodies and very few of us have pleasant smells. There is some research that states we are sexually attracted by people whose pheromones somehow interact with our own. I can buy this. We make all sorts of allowances when we are in love, even with stinky people.

I have probably mentioned this before, but I have a theory about washing. People who work for a living clean themselves immediately after work. They are dirty and have been sweating all day and really need to scrape some of that off in the shower. People who spend their days working in an office rarely work up a sweat or get their clothing dirty, really dirty, not “I got toner ink on my dress” dirty. Office workers have showers in the morning to wake up and get presentable for the day ahead. Of course there are those who have a nice, long, hot bath to ease away the aches and pains of life. I am not sure where wine and candles fit in, but I am told that they do.

In my life I have done all of the cleaning I have mentioned. I would shower after a particularly hot, dusty day of pounding the streets. It would tend to refresh me and keep me from the afternoon “power nap” that I liked so much. I don’t really get very dirty any longer now that I am retired. I have a shower in the morning to wake up and to assure myself that I won’t offend anyone in the grocery store line.

I could go days without cleaning myself if I lived in Hawaii and had the opportunity to spend an hour or two in the ocean every day. Well, maybe a shower to wash the ocean off of my body, but to tell the truth, I kind of like the smell of salt and fish urine.