The Man Whose Breath Stood Still

Tags: stink, stench, honey bucket, reak, foul odor, effluvium, factotum, jarvis, huskanoy, viral video, spraints, fodder, spuddle, pilgarlic, mab, monkeybreath, Arco, Arcology, Arconians

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. ---Robert Louis Stevenson

    A man walked into the Arco the other day. He was dressed all in black like a wild west circuit judge or country preacher. Nice, grand fatherly-looking man. Silver-haired. Almost stately-looking.
   
    This old man walked up to the counter and purchased some gas. I was standing over by the Arco ATM, hefting eight-paks of 2 liter cokes onto a too high stack of other 2 liter sodas. He barely spoke two sentences at the counter. He handed the clerk a twenty and got his change for $10 worth of gas. Then he walked out of the store.

    I needed to ask the clerk behind the counter something, I've forgotten what, and walked over to where the man had been standing. The foulest, boiling sewage stench I have ever smelled (and I have smelled death) hit me square in the nose.

    "JESUS, MARY, MOTHER OF GOD!!!" I screamed and jumped back a foot or two, "WHAT INA UNHOLY HELL IS THAT?!"

    I waved both my hands in front of my face, fanning the air as if I was trying to put out a fire on my face. Tears rolled down my eyes as if I had just eaten a jalepeno. I spun 360 degrees clockwise and 360 degrees counterclockwise, trying to spin the stink off me like a man trying to stave off a swarm of killer bees.

    The clerk was busy doing her shift change report and didn't notice me. You could drive a truck through the Arco while they're doing their shift change report and they wouldn't notice it.

    Much to my relief, the stink was off me. I stood there, frozen for a moment, wondering if the stink was just playing possum. In fact, I took one more step backwards, just in case. I sniffed tentatively at the air. Tentatively first, then taking a bolder sniff. Nope. It was gone.

    Now, I don't want you to think that I am exaggerating here. This was no garden variety stench. This was no common household pew. I have slept comfortably in abandoned warehouses full of toxic fumes. I have walked among the open-topped 'honey buckets' full of fresh human excrement overseas without so much as a twitch of my nose. I have eaten Kimchee and kissed women had just eaten Kimchee. My nose is no pristine virgin. Generally speaking, my nose is fearless, but this . . .THIS was a whole new ballgame, a paradigm shift in what is possible in the field of stink!

    I walked back to the spot in front of the counter where I'd had the encounter, where every neuron of my olfactory system had been so grossly offended.

    "JESUS!" I said at the stink attacked again like a slap in the face. Again I made a hasty retreat. This was no pansy pungency that wilted away with the air currents with which I was now dealing. No. This was a potent smell that wasn't going to fade easily!

    I stood over by the stacks of 2 liter sodas contemplating my next move. I would have never suspected this kindly old customer in black of having such a foul thing in him. Just goes to show you, you can't judge a reek by its cover.

    I decided to go in low. That would be my tac. I determined to investigate the source of cabbagy smell. Don't ask me why. That's just the kind of a guy I am. I investigate ALL paranormal phenomenon.

    The malevolent stink had hit me square at the five and a half foot level. If it had been flatulence, I reasoned, then traces of it should still remain around the three foot level. Cautiously, I crouched and approached the area where I calculated the old man's ass to have been and sniffed at the air. Nothing.

    Thinking the danger had passed, I stood up and was immediately overpowered by the stench. It had been his breath! His breath! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this poor bastard's breath was SOOOOO bad . . .that it stayed at the Arco counter long after he had walked out. It stayed there in a little frozen puff, right there at the five and a half foot area for at least ten minutes!

    I went into the sanctuary of the Arco cooler, deciding to leave the problem to someone else. Yes, sometimes flight is the better part of valor.