.Funny

Friday Firesmith – A Study in Common Scents

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Okay, I get it, the gym is a place where the people are, at a minimum, motivated enough to go someplace they can put the effort into being in better shape. It would be nice to attract someone in a gym, and start something wonderful, have kids, and live happily ever afteruntil one of you dies alone, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Also, the gym is a place to get sweaty about staying in shape. If you’re like me, you go in to get a good workout and to do that you have to put some effort into it. If I’m going to get on a treadmill and run, then when I stop, I want to feel it.

I hope, in the end, all of this makes scents to you.

First, let us address those who are using the gym as a brick-and-mortar dating app. Men, there is a very good reason most quality gyms have a section devoted as a “Women Only” area, enclosed, with a locked door, and opaque windows.

You are that reason.

If you’re looking to strike up a conversation with a woman at the gyn, find the woman who is sitting on a piece of equipment, and has been for an hour, listening to music, looking bored and waiting for something to happen.

Women, if you’re going to sit on a piece of equipment, and you have been for an hour, listening to music, looking bored, and waiting for something to happen, do not wear perfume that comes packaged in a pump handled bug sprayer.

Yesterday, I walked by a woman in the gym that had been baptized in something that smelled like patchouli-based plutonium. My eyes literally teared up. Two thingshere, flower child. One, any man who can stand within a couple of feet of you has lost his sense of smell. Two, whatever you’re trying to cover up, if it’s that bad, seek medical help.

Men, if you’re going to go to a gym, stop and have a moment with the idea of showers. Most gyms have them. They have water. They have soap. There is a reason they have showers in gyms.

You are that reason.

There’s a difference between the smell of a human being who has worked out for an hour and dripping with sweat as opposed to the smell of a human being who does not shower on a regular basis.

The difference is the same as that between riding by a farm and enjoying the scent of freshly cut hay, and falling down in the middle of a pig stockyard and having to crawl out.

Women, the same gender who will bathe in perfume, universally will also shower on a regular basis. I’ve never been in the gym I go to and had a woman walk by and nearly gag me because she hasn’t showered since Ford was president. (Yes, there was a President Ford but no one remembers him.) Men are more likely to smell like they just escaped from a prison in that pig stockyard I mentioned earlier.

In closing, you ought to smell like a human being, not a flower.  Also, you ought to smell like a human being who showers more often than a solar eclipse occurs.

Take Care, and Take Showers,

Mike

First letter from their enlisted child

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Dear Ma and Pa:
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Johnson by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.

We go on “route marches,” which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A “route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake . I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6″ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8″ and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,

Alice

Thanks, Patricia!