stinking up the post office

One temporary cultural preference that has arisen out of the age of cheap and easy energy consumption is our obsession with avoiding the experience of human aroma. This obsession was on display for me today, when I ventured out of the warm cocoon of the bicycle business to the post office. The PO is a great place to observe segments of humanity that I don't regularly encounter at work (this applies to both the customers and the employees of the PO).

As I entered the building, I held the door for a sweaty, sickly, wheezing, grotesquely obese man who was leaving the PO. Upon my entry into the customer service area, I noticed the lingering essence of this man. It was a mix of halitosis, musty sweat, festering crevices, and perhaps some not inconsiderable amount of urine/feces residue. At first, my natural reaction was revulsion, but when I considered this reaction objectively in the context of seeing my own cultural bias, I admitted that the smell wasn't really all that bad. Not that it was good, but I've smelled worse in various industrial settings, college chemistry labs, when food goes bad in the fridge, and other day-to-day experiences that are generally unremarkable.

Anyway, the front-line employees of the PO were clearly in distress, and were running around chaotically like so many freshly beheaded chickens, while the 3 or 4 of us waiting in line were more or less ignored. Finally, another PO employee emerged from the back room, and ordered us all to stand back from the counter, as he, in a split-second, produced some industrial-looking white and blue spray can, and proceeded to fumigate the room with the contents of the can. My smell sense was quickly assaulted with a sickeningly-sweet synthetic-floral fragrance that was more intense, and probably more unhealthy to ingest than the former smell of fat-guy body-odor. It covered up a mildly unpleasant smell with a smell that was unpleasant in a completely different way. To lighten the sour and agitated mood of the place, I said, "usually you guys wait until after I leave to do that!". I saw some of the other customers chuckle. But the PO employees tend to be beyond humor, and they shot me nasty looks as one of them said, "well, at least you took a shower today!".