Hope you had a swell day full of candy and flowers.
My day started off well enough but alas, I was foiled by Bart yet again. Not that the train didn't come or didn't go where it should. It came, and shortly after stepping on board, I was gagged by a toxic cloud of cigarette smoke, heavy perfume and some sort of hair product.
The front car is often the least crowded, as was the case this morning, but least crowded at 8:30 a.m. means you're still standing, just not on top of each other. There was no where else to stand as I tried to breathe through my book. She was next to me and I had no where to go but off the train.
But if I got off the train, I'd be late, so I decided to find a spot near the other side of the train when we hit the next stop. I thought, How bad could it really be?
I tried to focus on my book and take short, shallow breaths for the last 10 minutes of the ride. When I got back above ground I breathed deeply all the way to my office. I'd made it and now I could clear out my lungs.
Upstairs, I sat down in front of my computer and I could still smell that heavy, oily, tar pit of stench - WTF? I smelled the skin on the back of my hand - it was on my skin. ON MY SKIN.
I ran to the bathroom and washed every exposed inch of skin, but I could still smell it. It was in my nose, like when you've been sitting around a campfire then later you blow your nose and you smell the smoke.
But this was no campfire. I'd have loved a campfire. Or some dirt. Lighter fluid. Maybe a block of stinky cheese. But not this. This was nasty. Naaaaaaaaaasty. Unfortunately, my meeting was about to start and I had to go.
After my meeting I ran to Walgreen's for Febreeze. I sprayed my shirt, my coat and my hair. Short of taking another shower, there was nothing else I could do.
I think I washed my hands 38 times. I tried to wash out my nose twice (not easy), and thought about washing my hair with hand soap. I couldn't wait to get home for a Silkwood shower.
On the news tonight a woman actually said "valentimes" and wasn't trying to be funny. When exactly is Valentimes again?
2 comments:
Uh oh. Careful, compulsive hand-washing leads to ... compulsive hand-washing. Not to send you off on a three-day jag in the bathroom, but are we EVER truly clean?
I know, what if you wear one of those ridiculous battery powered air fresheners around you neck--the ones that send up a nice odiferous poof of sickly-sweet perfumed air every minute. ;-)
But seriously, BART stinks. Period. Even if they steam cleaned it every night (or once every few months) having thousands of people riding in moldy old carpet with their lingering BO doesn't help anyone.
Maybe carry a can of oust with you at all times...
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