Then came my 26th birthday. I awoke alone perspiring heavily as if I had spent the night curled up beneath a sweaty titty. For a moment I did not notice it, and then it hit me. Much like the hell fire to which the damned may never become accustomed, the 26th year stench pervaded everything, unrelentingly fucking my prudish olfactory senses. The smell was garish and rather rank but not altogether unpleasant. There were notes of lavender, rosemary, and pretentious hipster foodyism. If smells could be instagrammed I would have been an internet celebrity.
At first I tried to live my life as I once had, ignoring the smell as best I could. I went to work, hung out with my friends, insulted DJs, and made lewd gestures to dogs. Yet, whenever I slowed down, the smell would catch up to me, settling into to every pour of my body. I began to ask those closest to me whether or not they could smell it; they could not. I broadened my search asking friends of friends, acquaintances, animals, and even coworkers. I eventually sought the advice of spiritual leaders. A priest told me it was merely the B.O. from the eternal embrace of Christ. A rabbi chased me out of his office proclaiming the smell to be the gaseous emanations of a vengeful dybbuk. I consulted with high school goths around the country, each giving me different interpretations ranging from the supernatural to the sexual (the most plausible being that I somehow fucked an astral projection of Stevie Nicks leaving my dick swathed in a permanent pussy stank). It got to a point where I would accost a stranger over the wrinkling of her or his nose. It was to no avail, however. It seemed that I was to be the sole proprietor of this solipsistic stench.
The funky aroma's persistence was maddening; it began to affect me in subtle and unforeseen ways. I grew increasingly isolated, anxious, and emotional. I even joined a menopause support group and was then kicked out for being too moody. Worst of all my social ineptitude grew exponentially. I lacked more empathy and social awareness than drunk Hitler at a JDate mixer. It was like going through puberty all over again, except this time I had Asperger's and a twitter account. Because of all this I lost my job and many of my friends. My mother even began sending me insulting texts like "You're a stupid shit ass" and "My humming birds think you're fat!" I was disconsolate.
Only three months into the 26 year stench and I was ready to end it all. To help me decide I joined a Japanese suicide forum, speaking with strangers at length about the relative merits of different forms of suicide. In the process I befriended a 38 year old widow who wanted to be crushed to death by thousands of copies of her favorite Manga series and a 16 year old who was home schooled by magicians. Consulting these and other sorrowful types, we determined that either fan death or suicide by cop was the most posh course of action. Thus confirmed, I set out to plan my own death.
The whole process was simple really. Equipped with a gallon jug of barbicide, some hair clippers, numerous hair gels, a bottle of talcum powder, and a fake gun, I would head to Times Square and take a bunch of hostages. Once there, I would start giving my hostages terrible hair cuts until the police arrived. At some point during the hostage negotiations I had planned to turn my gun on the cops and watch as they riddled my odoriferous body with bullets. A fitting end and one that I looked forward to with relish. However, things did not go as planned.
Walking into Times Square and decorated with the accouterments of barberity, I surveyed the crowd and anxiously picked my first victim, a 20 something yuppie woman sporting David Byrne-esque shoulder pads. All of the sudden the 26 year stench flared up beyond comprehension, swathing me in a choking miasma of heretofore unknown proportions. Reaching for my gun, I plotted which haircut to bestow upon this woman: mullet, bowl cut, devil's lock, or, if I had the time, cornrows? Only a pace or two behind the lady, she stopped abruptly and swiveled her head from side to side. I too stopped and clutched my gun. Whipping her head around she looked at me long and hard. Her nose twitched and her eyes lit up.
"I thought I smelled barbicide! You're one of those guys who give free hair cuts, right?" I nodded sullenly. "Good. Make me look like a lesbian Donald Trump with postpartum depression." Somehow I knew exactly what that meant and began to trim this woman's hair. Cutting, coiffing, and crimping, I found myself lost in the process and started up a conversation with this woman. Her name was Angelica Linares, a quick witted and ambitious Uruguayan with facial tattoos who fancied herself a "self spin doctor." Incredulous and captivated, I inquired further. Angelica explained that a self spin doctor was the middle ground between therapist and PR person, analyst and image consultant, a sort of self-marketing masseuse who gave your ego a happy ending. That's when I decided to hold off on the whole killing myself thing.
Angelica became a close friend and consultant to me, advising me in all manners of my personal and professional life. Her advice was trenchant and applicable: wear shorter short shorts, stop addressing everyone as "Dave", find me opium, get that one Black Flag tattoo, cut a whole in your fanny pack so you can put your dick through it, watch more rom coms, and, most importantly, create a popular smut tumblr. However, despite our fantastic rapport, I still withheld from her the the darkest of my secrets, the 26 year stench. The smell had become more oppressive than ever, something to which Angelica was slowly becoming attune. Perhaps it was my frequent paroxysms of choking or my constant referencing of skunk furries, but eventually Angelica forced the issue.
"Why the fuck do you keep acting like you're in the bathroom of the Crohn's disease ward at a Dallas BBQ?!" Though I had been frightened by the prospect of revealing the 26 year stench to Angelica, her acknowledgement of my behavior made me feel unaccountably well. For the first time someone had noticed the smell, though without smelling it. In blog form I confessed to her my curse. Responding via a series of images on tumblr, Angelica related that my situation reminded her of an old Uruguayan legend, "el hombre que se convirtio en pedo." According to the myth, there was once a man that was plagued by a smell which only he could recognize. After a slow and occasionally hilarious descent into insanity, the man vowed to discover the source of this smell. He wandered the earth for 30 years, a peripatetic saint to the olfactory gods. He supplicated the most sacred shrines of stench across the globe: guano caves in Nigeria, sulfur mines in New Zealand, cow farms in Texas, and even performed cunnilingus on the world's stinkiest vagina (a distinction held by a woman, Mildred MacDuff, who notoriously used tampons cut from the mud stained jersey of Aleister Crowley's occult rugby team).
Like many myths, "el hombre's" search concluded in tragedy when a vengeful spirit stripped him of his corporeal form, leaving "el hombre" nothing but his own stench to comfort him for the rest of eternity. Creepily, Angelica added that once as a child she thought she had encountered this fetid phantasm. Though interesting, the tale left me more crestfallen than ever, providing only the vague hope that I might someday torment others with my smell rather than myself.
Still, Angelica continued to analyze and spin my predicament. Bandying about such trending terms as "Spiritual Anal Bleach" and "Superego Hair Plugs," Angelica encouraged me to return to the life my stench made me abandon. However, each attempt I made only pushed me farther away from my old life and closer to the stench. I began to eat less and smoke more. I bought twenty eight smoke machines and filled my apartment with them. I lingered in smokey bars, gaseous industrial factories, and flatulent Brooklyn flats. In all things I sought vapor and smell.
It was around this time that my body began to change. Though I lost weight, my frame seemed expanded. A smokey pallor overtook my once brnzed skin. My nose grew and my lung capacity reached Michael Phelps bong hit proportions. None of this seemed alarming to me, however. In truth, I was not aware of these changes until one day when sitting with Angelica my hand passed through my coffee cup. Thrown into a fit by my (trans)apparent rarefaction, I rushed home. For hours I stood in the mirror marveling at my new form, all the while taking deeper and deeper inhalations of the 26 year stench. I closed my eyes and with every breath understood the rank fragrance was coming from somewhere inside of me, but was also enveloping me. No longer able to open my eyes or move, I waited cocooned in what felt like a breezy porta potty. After a duration of time somewhere between translating every season of Friends into Latin and the time it would take to collect every piece of ZZ Top paraphernalia, I awoke without form.
So there you have it. I am now a stinking cloud of effluvium, a sentient fart. My existence is slightly better now than when I was a corporeal being. I no longer have to take the subway or have awkward elevator conversations. Moreover, I can drape myself over someone and make them smell like a pair of Al Pacino's pussy eating dentures. It's hilarious. Of course, being unable to interact with humans can be kind of a drag. I miss Angelica. I wonder how she would spin this one?
At first I tried to live my life as I once had, ignoring the smell as best I could. I went to work, hung out with my friends, insulted DJs, and made lewd gestures to dogs. Yet, whenever I slowed down, the smell would catch up to me, settling into to every pour of my body. I began to ask those closest to me whether or not they could smell it; they could not. I broadened my search asking friends of friends, acquaintances, animals, and even coworkers. I eventually sought the advice of spiritual leaders. A priest told me it was merely the B.O. from the eternal embrace of Christ. A rabbi chased me out of his office proclaiming the smell to be the gaseous emanations of a vengeful dybbuk. I consulted with high school goths around the country, each giving me different interpretations ranging from the supernatural to the sexual (the most plausible being that I somehow fucked an astral projection of Stevie Nicks leaving my dick swathed in a permanent pussy stank). It got to a point where I would accost a stranger over the wrinkling of her or his nose. It was to no avail, however. It seemed that I was to be the sole proprietor of this solipsistic stench.
The funky aroma's persistence was maddening; it began to affect me in subtle and unforeseen ways. I grew increasingly isolated, anxious, and emotional. I even joined a menopause support group and was then kicked out for being too moody. Worst of all my social ineptitude grew exponentially. I lacked more empathy and social awareness than drunk Hitler at a JDate mixer. It was like going through puberty all over again, except this time I had Asperger's and a twitter account. Because of all this I lost my job and many of my friends. My mother even began sending me insulting texts like "You're a stupid shit ass" and "My humming birds think you're fat!" I was disconsolate.
Only three months into the 26 year stench and I was ready to end it all. To help me decide I joined a Japanese suicide forum, speaking with strangers at length about the relative merits of different forms of suicide. In the process I befriended a 38 year old widow who wanted to be crushed to death by thousands of copies of her favorite Manga series and a 16 year old who was home schooled by magicians. Consulting these and other sorrowful types, we determined that either fan death or suicide by cop was the most posh course of action. Thus confirmed, I set out to plan my own death.
The whole process was simple really. Equipped with a gallon jug of barbicide, some hair clippers, numerous hair gels, a bottle of talcum powder, and a fake gun, I would head to Times Square and take a bunch of hostages. Once there, I would start giving my hostages terrible hair cuts until the police arrived. At some point during the hostage negotiations I had planned to turn my gun on the cops and watch as they riddled my odoriferous body with bullets. A fitting end and one that I looked forward to with relish. However, things did not go as planned.
Walking into Times Square and decorated with the accouterments of barberity, I surveyed the crowd and anxiously picked my first victim, a 20 something yuppie woman sporting David Byrne-esque shoulder pads. All of the sudden the 26 year stench flared up beyond comprehension, swathing me in a choking miasma of heretofore unknown proportions. Reaching for my gun, I plotted which haircut to bestow upon this woman: mullet, bowl cut, devil's lock, or, if I had the time, cornrows? Only a pace or two behind the lady, she stopped abruptly and swiveled her head from side to side. I too stopped and clutched my gun. Whipping her head around she looked at me long and hard. Her nose twitched and her eyes lit up.
"I thought I smelled barbicide! You're one of those guys who give free hair cuts, right?" I nodded sullenly. "Good. Make me look like a lesbian Donald Trump with postpartum depression." Somehow I knew exactly what that meant and began to trim this woman's hair. Cutting, coiffing, and crimping, I found myself lost in the process and started up a conversation with this woman. Her name was Angelica Linares, a quick witted and ambitious Uruguayan with facial tattoos who fancied herself a "self spin doctor." Incredulous and captivated, I inquired further. Angelica explained that a self spin doctor was the middle ground between therapist and PR person, analyst and image consultant, a sort of self-marketing masseuse who gave your ego a happy ending. That's when I decided to hold off on the whole killing myself thing.
Angelica became a close friend and consultant to me, advising me in all manners of my personal and professional life. Her advice was trenchant and applicable: wear shorter short shorts, stop addressing everyone as "Dave", find me opium, get that one Black Flag tattoo, cut a whole in your fanny pack so you can put your dick through it, watch more rom coms, and, most importantly, create a popular smut tumblr. However, despite our fantastic rapport, I still withheld from her the the darkest of my secrets, the 26 year stench. The smell had become more oppressive than ever, something to which Angelica was slowly becoming attune. Perhaps it was my frequent paroxysms of choking or my constant referencing of skunk furries, but eventually Angelica forced the issue.
"Why the fuck do you keep acting like you're in the bathroom of the Crohn's disease ward at a Dallas BBQ?!" Though I had been frightened by the prospect of revealing the 26 year stench to Angelica, her acknowledgement of my behavior made me feel unaccountably well. For the first time someone had noticed the smell, though without smelling it. In blog form I confessed to her my curse. Responding via a series of images on tumblr, Angelica related that my situation reminded her of an old Uruguayan legend, "el hombre que se convirtio en pedo." According to the myth, there was once a man that was plagued by a smell which only he could recognize. After a slow and occasionally hilarious descent into insanity, the man vowed to discover the source of this smell. He wandered the earth for 30 years, a peripatetic saint to the olfactory gods. He supplicated the most sacred shrines of stench across the globe: guano caves in Nigeria, sulfur mines in New Zealand, cow farms in Texas, and even performed cunnilingus on the world's stinkiest vagina (a distinction held by a woman, Mildred MacDuff, who notoriously used tampons cut from the mud stained jersey of Aleister Crowley's occult rugby team).
Like many myths, "el hombre's" search concluded in tragedy when a vengeful spirit stripped him of his corporeal form, leaving "el hombre" nothing but his own stench to comfort him for the rest of eternity. Creepily, Angelica added that once as a child she thought she had encountered this fetid phantasm. Though interesting, the tale left me more crestfallen than ever, providing only the vague hope that I might someday torment others with my smell rather than myself.
Still, Angelica continued to analyze and spin my predicament. Bandying about such trending terms as "Spiritual Anal Bleach" and "Superego Hair Plugs," Angelica encouraged me to return to the life my stench made me abandon. However, each attempt I made only pushed me farther away from my old life and closer to the stench. I began to eat less and smoke more. I bought twenty eight smoke machines and filled my apartment with them. I lingered in smokey bars, gaseous industrial factories, and flatulent Brooklyn flats. In all things I sought vapor and smell.
It was around this time that my body began to change. Though I lost weight, my frame seemed expanded. A smokey pallor overtook my once brnzed skin. My nose grew and my lung capacity reached Michael Phelps bong hit proportions. None of this seemed alarming to me, however. In truth, I was not aware of these changes until one day when sitting with Angelica my hand passed through my coffee cup. Thrown into a fit by my (trans)apparent rarefaction, I rushed home. For hours I stood in the mirror marveling at my new form, all the while taking deeper and deeper inhalations of the 26 year stench. I closed my eyes and with every breath understood the rank fragrance was coming from somewhere inside of me, but was also enveloping me. No longer able to open my eyes or move, I waited cocooned in what felt like a breezy porta potty. After a duration of time somewhere between translating every season of Friends into Latin and the time it would take to collect every piece of ZZ Top paraphernalia, I awoke without form.
So there you have it. I am now a stinking cloud of effluvium, a sentient fart. My existence is slightly better now than when I was a corporeal being. I no longer have to take the subway or have awkward elevator conversations. Moreover, I can drape myself over someone and make them smell like a pair of Al Pacino's pussy eating dentures. It's hilarious. Of course, being unable to interact with humans can be kind of a drag. I miss Angelica. I wonder how she would spin this one?
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