Breaking news: I’m a guy, and I stink. This may not be actual news for some of you, but some folks (namely my wife) think men should never smell bad. As much as that is a nice utopian theory, I have to work, which results in perspiration, which results in body odor, which, luckily for my wife, results in a paycheck. She uses that paycheck to enjoy her weekly shopping sprees at her favorite store, Target. Maybe while she is there she should pick me up some deodorant.
I don’t prefer to stink. I don’t go to great efforts to purposely smell bad. However, I generally don’t go to extreme efforts not to smell bad, either. Therein lies the problem, because sometimes, admittedly, I do get a bit funky. If you ask me, it’s all just part of the job of being a man. Stuff needs to be fixed around the house, it’s hot outside, thus repairing the sprinklers causes me to smell. So what? Ignore the B.O. and look how green the lawn is. Smelling bad means I actually accomplished something. I don’t get sweaty lying on the couch watching Top Gear on BBC.
Unfortunately for me, and my armpits, my wife has this absolutely amazing sense of smell. She could be a superhero with that nose. Does she use her mutant nose to find lost children or fight crime? Nope. She uses it to remind me that I need to take a shower. My disadvantage is I can’t smell whatever my wife finds so revolting on me. I’m walking through life fat, dumb, and smelly, and have no idea that I carry this rotten stench.
When I come home from work, I give my wife a kiss hello, and immediately her nose is on to me. This leads to a childlike interrogation:
“Did you take a shower this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did you use the soap?”
“Yes.”
“Did you wash your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Did you use deodorant?”
“Yes.”
“Are those clean clothes?”
“If the floor in our bedroom is where we keep clean clothes, then yes.”
Next my wife gives me her version of the answer to life: “You should take another shower.”
My wife, whom I love, thinks that taking a shower is the most wonderful and beautiful thing in the world, which explains why she spends half of her life in there. She is either in the shower, about to get in the shower, or she is toweling off and blow drying her hair from her last trip to the shower. Her life, essentially, is the shower. Not coincidently, it is the only place in the house where she gets refuge from me and the kids. Well, I try to join her (to conserve water, of course) but the end result of the conversation is always the same: “Get out!”
Here is an example. I walk into the bathroom, and, statistically speaking, my wife is in the shower.
“Hey, Baby,” I try to say as sexy as possible.
“What?” she replies, annoyed (she knows what I’m looking for).
“You want me to wash your hair?”
“No.”
“I was about to jump in the shower myself.” A complete lie. “You mind if I join you?”
“Yes, I mind. I’m clean right now, and you’re dirty.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make any sense. I’ll get clean inside the shower.”
“I don’t want all of your dirty water splashing on my clean body.”
“But … the soap and water in the shower would clean you again.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m getting out now.” Her usual exit strategy. “You can have the shower to yourself.”
“Eh, no thanks. I guess I don’t really need one.”
To defend my smelly self, I do take a shower every day. Well, every weekday, that is. Just like everyone else, before I go to work, I have a routine of getting ready: shower, shave, and Rock Band (yes, the videogame has often made me late). However, on the weekends, I enjoy my time off. I lie around and take it easy. For some reason, I just don’t find the time to get in the shower. To me, taking a shower means I’m getting ready for work. Weekends aren’t about work, they’re about drinking so much you forget about work.
As long as I stay in the garage, nobody cares what I smell like. But when Sunday evening comes around, and I start trying to get cozy with my wife, that is when my baby (and her nose) get real cranky.
“You haven’t taken a shower since Friday morning. That’s almost three days ago.”
“Uh, what’re you saying?”
“I’m saying if you loved me, you would stay clean.”
“Then I’m going to jump in the shower right now. Care to join me?”
“No thanks. I already took three showers today, and I’m pretty tired. I’ll probably be asleep by the time you get out.”
“Oh … well, then I’ll skip the shower. Goodnight, Baby.”
“Goodnight, Stinky.”
Rob’s wife stopped buying him cologne, because instead of using it after he took a shower, he just used a lot of it to try to substitute for a shower.
This article appears in Jul 23-30, 2009.