Even Frau Lobster Says I Don't Stink...

And really, she has about the most sensitive nose on earth. My own olfactories are delicate and trained. I'm a National rank BJCP judge, and after another decade of judging I might have enough experience points to make it worth re-testing for Master, the next rank up. I have a bit of a blind spot for dimethylsulfide, the fermentation by-product that gives some beers a 'cooked corn' aromatic note, but I can smell mercaptans (the skunky smell that shows up in beers bottled in clear or green glass) a mile a way.

That sknunkiness is not supposed to be there, by the way. Some Heinekin/Grolsh/Pilsner Urquell drinkers think it's the selling point, but it's actually damage done during storage. The iso-alpha-acids that make beer bitter, when exposed to excessive UV, split up and form, among other things, the exact same chemical that skunks spray on potential predators. Miller gets away with clear glass by using a hop extract that does not have the susceptible molecule. Not that there's much in the way of hopping to a bottle of Miller, but if you must accept an improperly packaged beer brewed to McBottomLine standards, it's probably the 'least offensive.'

Anyway, Frau Lobster can smell the residual of fried foods prepared in our kitchen for about six years after the meal has been prepared. She was an early adopter of Febreeze, and is given to burning smelly candles and spending her discretionary income in a local soap shop that makes perfume-laden soaps you can smell after six or eight rinses.

So if Frau Lobster says I don't stink, I take her at her word. I swear she smells offenses that are not there, so if she can't detect one, it definitely doesn't exist.

This is by way of introducing that my boss talked to me (again) about coworkers bitching about my aroma. Coworkers plural. He can't tell me who all it is, but I know one is my cellmate. The asshole. In nine years on the job, I've rarely even thought that term, let alone said it aloud.

The reinforcement of a second person, of course, lends credibility to my status as a latter day Ignatius Reilly, complete with yellowed smock and poorly maintained hot-dog cart.

I don't know who the second person is, but I assume it's someone the asshole talks to. I also assume that, on his cue, they've tried to ascertain how many days in a row I wear the same jeans.

For full disclosure, I'll say that in a day of light office work, I do not believe a pair of jeans gets 'dirty' to the extent that they need to be subjected to a full laundry cycle. I haven't done any scientific testing, but my impression is that in the winter (barring snow shoveling or other sweaty activities), four days is a good mark. Summer, two to three tops.

And here's the thing: I guarantee you that, with the possible exception of my asshole cellmate, a lot of people use the same standard, coupled with their nose and eyes, to determine if a garment can be worn again. Especially the 'well dressed.' The asshole is given to wearing suits to work, a pretension that is incomprehensible since the CEO of the company wears jeans. But if you wear a suit, do you have it dry cleaned after one wearing? Maybe if you are literally without another way to spend your money. Or if you're an asshole production artist in a cubicle farm with almost no dress code.

Despite my ramblings against McStarbuckification, I do buy jeans at Wal-Mart. I'm either exploiting Bangladeshi cotton workers at the expense of poor, out of work Southerners, or I'm helping Bangladesh industrialize the same as we once helped Alabama. Take your pick. But I won't pay $30 extra for a 'Levi's' tag when the cotton came from the same third world textile hell. $10 a pair for jeans, great. More money for shit that matters, like the $250-$300 per month I spend on prescription copays to keep me and my family up to the American standard of near-health. Shit, maybe I spend the $30 I don't give the Levi's ad agency on booze. If so, at least I'm giving the money to someone who fulfills a useful function in society (brewing and distilling alcoholic beverages). The alternative is to pour those funds into the scam machine that generates the shuck-and-jive routine that a $7,000 Sub-Zero refrigerator will actually keep their food ten times fresher than a $700 Maytag. Or that a BMW 740 is worth $50,000 more than a Toyota Camry.

Viva Bangladesh!

Anyway, I buy these jeans in batches. Frau Lobster is on her way to the Stuff-Mart tomorrow to buy a fresh stockpile of hypoallergenic deodorant (I'm down to three sticks) and two or three more pair of cheap, Bangladeshi-cotton 'Faded Glory' 44-30 jeans. Since they'll go through the wash at about the same rate, I'm sure that anal-retentive coworkers will assume I'm wearing the same jeans every day.

Maybe I should wear my underwear on the outside. That way people could tell. Unlike my jeans, my underwear is unique. Em delights in picking out boxers for me any time a gift-giving holiday comes up. I have three pair of Sponge-Bob-Square-Pants boxers, each with a different design. I also have hearts, the Guinness beer logo, Scooby-Doo, Homer Simpson, etc.

I think of boxer shorts as lingerie for men. I mean, really, except for Olympic swimmers, almost no guy can pull off the Speedo thing, so boxers are the way to go. And just as the woman in front of me in the gas station line might be wearing a blistering ensemble from Fredricks of Hollywood under the ordinary clothes she's wearing to work, my little secret is the 'Fear My Nekkedness' Sponge-Bob boxers under my generic blue jeans. Does it have the same sex-appeal as embroidered lace? No, but the embroidered lace only has sex-appeal based on the chick wearing it.

Anyway, my boss suggested that my hair might be the cause of the complaints. It is a wild growth, the longest I've sported in over ten years. Depending on humidity and what conditioners happen to be in the shower stall, it ranges from laying relatively flat to being fairly frizzy. I don't have many split-ends because I never blow-dry it. On rare occasions, I have it evened up, but basically I'm growing it until next April or so. By then, I'll be a veritable wig-farm for Locks of Love. They separate out the gray hairs (hard to tell in my blonde mop), but they need a minimum 10" drop of braided or pony-tailed hair. I've sweated out enough warm weather events in the past year that I'm not turning back until I've got a donatable amount.

The facial hair, I don't think they can use it, but I figure I might as well experiment with going wooly in the face while I've got the mane above to go with it.

My boss, for the record, has long-hair tendencies but gave up the mop years ago. He asked if I had enough to pull back in a pony-tail, and I do. He thought that might seem less 'wild' to my fellow inmates, and put them at ease, so I'm going to experiment with banding my hair back.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that I have over $400 invested in a suit I've worn to one wedding and one funeral. I think I'll wear it to work Monday. I'll look like a damned bail bondsman, shoulder-length hair, nipple length beard, coat and tie. Maybe I'll douse myself with one of the Reagan Era colognes that is still in my medicine chest for good measure. That way, if my coworkers want to say I smell bad (either because they are in my cubicle, harnessing all their energies into hating me, or because they listen to someone who is), I can at least pretend to be in touch with my inner Ralph Lauren instead of my inner Ignatius Reilly.