Tuesday, November 06, 2007

they've moved people around at my job. purchasing has been moved to banway. the service desk is down on shattuck.

the business and finance team has been moved to my floor.

and, lordy, lordy, they're really smelling up the place. i don't mean a subtle touch of perfume on the neck, a delicate dab on the wrist. no, what i'm smelling wafting from the breakroom to the distribution center appears to have been applied with a leaf blower.

i passed by business and finance the other day and couldn't believe my eyes. a woman spritzed herself in her cube creating a mushroom cloud of perfume rising upward and onward, moving off to rain its smelly fallout across the floor.

isn't this kind of behavior illegal in Berkeley?

later, i walked into the bathroom and caught a whiff. a horrid floral sweet odor like gardenias dipped in caramel then sprinkled with chocolate morsels. a tooth hurting odor. i suspected the heavy applicator from business and finance. so i peeked under the stall. muddy tennis shoes with mis-matched laces -- Bernie from Application Services. not really a perfume sort -- perhaps a little Brut aftershave under the pits, but not this.

When she left, I went about my business, leaving my own devastating bouquet behind, washed my hands, and then saw the source of the stink sitting above the paper towel dispenser (which is always stocked so tightly and you have to tug so hard that the paper towel gets torn into tiny bite-sized pieces -- which is whole 'nother blog.)

there it stood. a tiny glass vase, no bigger than my hand, filled with a honey colored oil with long thin tooth-pick like things soaking in the stuff. I removed one toothpick thingy and ran it under my nose. the scent was as delicate as a sledgehammer and brought back memories of every Motel Six room between here and Fresno trying to pass itself off as non-smoking.

how foul, i said to myself which i am certain is not the response Susie (or any of the other business and finance natural odor haters) probably expected.

my hand twitched to chuck that stinky thing into the waste along with the mounds of damp and shredded paper towels, but i thought no. that would be wrong. people's feelings will get hurt. and the stench will surely soak into the paper towel and spread more easily. best to leave it where it is.

that night while linda was tapping on her new iPhone (the cause of our near breakup, but that too can wait) i said, "business and finance is stinking up the place".

"hmmm," she said which is her standard non-response. she didn't look up. continued tapping with her fingertip. tap. tap.

"really stinks"

tap. tap. tap.

tap.

i have paranoid tendencies, but ever since the iPhone came into the house, i've been feeling a little less interesting. i mean, who can compete with all that?

anyhow, i went on about the stink and such. i may have touched upon my issues with the jammed paper-towel dispenser. and still nothing. tap. tap. tap.

finally, i just said "i'm gonna fucking chuck that thing in the garbage."

of course meaning the perfume dispenser in the 2nd floor toilet. not the iPhone

"do it," she said.

tap. tap. tap.

26 comments:

norcalcyclingnews.com said...

do it



so good.

EB said...

Ha ha. You have coed bathrooms? I am so glad we don't -- the guys always take the office newspapers & head toward the potty. I want no part of that.

Ippoc Amic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ippoc Amic said...

marscat's bathroom isn't co-ed...

Ippoc Amic said...

who keeps asking to play games on the new toy? not the kitties...

did you throw out the perfume thingy yet? they will know that it was you who threw it out...

marscat said...

Bernie is all woman...

and i'm waiting for my moment.

~ lauren said...

i thought bernie was a man too at first.

especially with the muddy shoes and brut aftershave.

and you do know, don't you, that you're not suposed to poop at work.

~ lauren said...

marscat, when did you see me yesterday? i must have been totally asleep.

Velo Bella said...

Who spritzes themselves these days? Do people really still do that?

Tell Linda I said hi

Ippoc Amic said...

ooh...spritzing...a friend bought a really expensive toilet that has water jets so after the biddness is done you can get yourself really clean...hot, warm, and cold water too...i didn't try it but marscat did...she said it was weird..

hi bella...

marscat said...

lauren you were coming down the hill yesterday right after the top of tunnel..i was in my truck waving and waving...you looked so fucused

Ippoc Amic said...

fucused...i know that feeling...

Lilly Bella said...

hmmm...Marsy maybe if you didn't poop at work, your officemates wouldn't leave stinky perfumey thingies in the bathroom...just a thought. You could bring it up at the next staff meeting, now that would be a fun meeting.

Lorri Lee Lown -- velogirl said...

"the scent was as delicate as a sledgehammer and brought back memories of every Motel Six room between here and Fresno trying to pass itself off as non-smoking."

freaking beautiful!

jen said...

gah. perfume clouds, yuckorama.

i was in france doing research, and of course my hotel room had a bidet thingy. i didn't try it out, but because i'm a crass, immature american, i spent the rest of the day imagining all the passersby spritzing and cleansing. like, dude, all these people used the spritzy thing on their butts? heh, heh, heh.

getting a phd never made anyone any smarter

marscat said...

lilly - point taken...

vg: :}

jen: you silly phder.

chatterbox said...

oh yeah, I can envision the stench. I hate perfume! I work in the engineering building, which is more likely to have a BO problem than a perfume problem. But, the other day I had to go over to the HR building to review college resumes. I was sitting in this small room with other engineers reading when one of the HR ladies came in completely drenched in perfume. It resulted in an allergic reaction unlike anything I've experienced lately. It took two shots of espresso and about 3 hours to come off the reaction. I hate perfume! Sorry, I'm repeating myself.

Itinerant Rick said...

A few jobs ago I had a co-worker that I shared an office with who would come in after driving down to Palo Alto from Marin smelling like he had taken a bath in some awful cologne. And the first thing he would do when he got in the office would be to take out the bottle and add some more. Chuck the bottle, but do it outside the bathroom ... perhaps into a trash can on another floor.

iPhones are evil!

marscat said...

chatty and rick: the stuff should be outlawed...

EB said...

Oh, I missed the "she" after Bernie...waiting for your moment...snort...

We've got a cologne abuser here, too.

I did try the bidet when I was in Paris, but it didn't have a dryer setting so I just felt like it made more work for me. I can't imagine a PUBLIC bidet.

Eclectchick said...

"delicate as a sledgehammer and brought back memories of every Motel Six room between here and Fresno trying to pass itself off as non-smoking."

Seriously - there are some mighty strange ideas out there of what smells good. Especially of what smells good with, er, poo. Cherry air freshener and poo are NOT a good mix. Come to think of it, I don't know WHAT and poo are a good mix.

I hope you chuck the thing (iPhone AND air freshener). I have a yen to toss our laptop, which my hubby has a bona fide addiction to. Grrrr.

jen said...

but, but, but, if you toss the laptop, how will you blog? life would lose all meaning ;-)

i never saw a public bidet. the one in my hotel room had towels, no dryer setting. good thing i never thought about that possibility. i'd have become even more crass and immature.

Anonymous said...

um...what in sam-hell kept you chucking it? chuck it already!

X Bunny said...

cologne abuser

they must have a support group for that or something

Unknown said...

wait... people wear pefume in berkeley???

they don't shave their armpits, but they wear perfume?

does it at least smell like hemp or pot or something?

Kimberly (aka. DrKim) said...

in japan, most of the toilets (even many public ones) have the fancy bidets with more settings and picture images than you can imagine! You can adjust water pressure, temperature, speed, duration, seat temperature (yes, the seats are heated, too)...the list goes on...

scary...