Yesterday, right before I left work, my boss said to me: “This is a rather uncomfortable conversation to have with someone, Michael.” The first thing that went through my head was, Oh, shit. She’s going to get after me for taking a long lunch today. But I was wrong…
Last week, Natania and I had a spell where cleaning up Odin’s fecal calamities and keeping on with schoolwork got the best of us. So we left a load of laundry in the washer for some amount of time; I’m not really sure how long it stayed there–a day or two, I’d imagine–but one of the other folks in the building took it upon themselves to throw it in the dryer and finish it up for us. Very nice of them, considering. But this resulted in a rather pungent batch of clothes, most of which we threw back into the hamper to re-wash later.
Most, but not all. I have a pair of dark green slacks, which I wear to work on a very regular basis. You see, they go very well with most of my shirts, and since my job consists mostly of sitting in place, inactive, day in and day out, I can wear an outfit two times or so before it’s really necessary to launder. These slacks, I figured, weren’t as bad as the rest of the clothes. They didn’t smell too terribly, and besides, who the hell is smelling my pants? No one gets that close, right?
Yesterday, I found out that my boss does. She sent an IM at 5:00 telling me to stop by on my way out. I did so, and she told me to close the door.
“I wanted to let you know that there has been an odor about you today,” she said. “I noticed it once last week, and again today. I just wanted to be polite about it and give you a heads up. Try to re-evalute your grooming habits, and everything will be fine. We want to give a good impression to the clients, and personal hygiene is part of that good impression.”
Dead serious. This is how she talks. I’m surprised she didn’t use the word effluvium.
My face flushed. I felt the blood rushing upward, and felt that awkward, embarrassed smile stumble across my bearded mug. All I could do was nod and tell her, yes, I’d work on it, sorry about the funk, thanks for telling me, blah blah blah.
On the ride home, I realized: the stank-ass laundry! And I just couldn’t keep myself from laughing.
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