“It smells horrible in here.”

Carla walked into the office, letting the door slam behind her. She didn’t even remember to ask how I was doing. And this on a Monday morning.

“Oh my gosh, do you smell that?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” I said, wondering what she was talking about. I could detect little more than a minor odor coming from the back storage area. I figured it was the trash, and noted that I should take it out as soon as possible. Carla wouldn’t relent.

“Do you think something died in here over the weekend?” she asked, moving towards the thermostat. “I’m going to blast the air for a bit.”

Shameless. She’d use any excuse to turn our office into a snow cave. I sniffed around again, curious what she was talking about. Then Beatrice walked through the front door.

“Oh god!” she exclaimed. “It smells like rotting corpse in here!”

Okay, I thought. This is a little ridiculous. As the two debated the source of the stench, I got up to step outside. Maybe a minute standing on the sidewalk would un-acclimate me to this apparent graveyard odor.

It was the first time I’d stepped outside since Saturday, save for one Sunday trip to the gym to shower, in order to remain indoors and avoid the unseasonable heat. Holing up in solitary bliss behind my desk, I alternated between sessions of reading, napping, and fantasizing that Aubrey Plaza might materialize from thin air. It was everything I could ever ask for in a Sunday. I felt completely rejuvenated.

Where have you been all my Sunday?

Wait.

I’m not an overly self-conscious guy. But making a quick assessment of the facts, it seemed likely that there was a small chance that I was partially responsible for this smell. For someone living alternatively, I maintain an extremely hygienic and meticulous level of cleanliness. Or so I thought. Living in such confined quarters presents plenty of room for error, and having admittedly missed my Sunday shower, it is possible that being cooped up for a bit could lead to some foulness of the air.

I stepped back inside, noted only the faintest of smells, and started to go over the details of the weekend. My clothing, my food, my waste. I start to take a mental inventory of all my belongings in order to determine whether or not I am in fact… the noxious culprit!

Let’s review the weekend together: The office had been cleaned on Saturday afternoon. There was no garbage present and the fridge remained clear of spoiled goods. No dirty clothes remained indoors. No wet shoes tracking animal dung or sewage. I had spent all Sunday in the office with modest air conditioning running (let’s say 77 degrees, on average). I showered Sunday evening and had no reason to sweat, save for my recent thread of Shani-sponsored nightmares[1]. A quick check of the armpits revealed nothing but a mild cucumber scent from my moisturizer.

The only aberration I could think of came this morning. At 6:30am I had taken the last of my pre-Haiti oral typhoid vaccine, a cocktail which hasn’t been the kindest to my digestive system over the past week, leaving me prone to the occasional atmospheric faux pas. Was it possible my bowel typhoon created a virtual greenhouse effect of stench in the two-or-so hours before Carla arrived? Could I be so stinky as to leave a mark so profoundly putrid, 30 minutes of full-strength air conditioning couldn’t combat its malodorous horror? Had I produced a stench so untenable, the peace of the workplace had been disturbed, leaving my colleagues fearful for their well-being?

Naturally, I am horrified that this might be my doing. Some macabre consequence of this typhus concoction, baked into a tainted miasma of reality somewhere between the Bukowskian and Shyamalanian recipe books. Surely I’ll be found out and immediately relieved of my duties, discarded amongst the rubble of urban sanitation which my Pig Pen integusphere now almost certainly resembles. I’ll never work again, never wed. My best bet is to commandeer my own shopping cart now, while I still have any belongings to salvage. At least I know of a safe place near the next-door apartment building where I can lock them up.

Okay, so perhaps that was a touch over-reactive.

As the morning continued, the source and intensity of the smell became less clear. Later, I again stepped outside for a couple of minutes to chat up a client and walked back into the office greeted by a dull aroma of, for lack of a better description, bleached pineapple cadaver. Just merciless. How could I accept responsibility for this odor? Troubled as my intestines might have been, this was not my doing. But what could it be?

We searched everywhere for the source of the smell, but to no avail. Eventually, we opened the door and blasted the air conditioning. And then we purchased lemon- and lavender-scented candles to work to mask it. Having scheduled a committee meeting in the office for 6:30pm, our priority was making the office livable for our evening guests. But the implication was clear: If the odor remained tomorrow, we’d have to call in the landlord for help. And this would seriously jeopardize my routine.

So what course of action do I take? Do I blast the air conditioning and break out the air fresheners, working to mask the whiff of death, potentially concealing an actual problem, in order to save my own hide? Or do I cooperate, sleeping overnight in the stale warmth in order to promote whatever odor might arise, despite the risk that the landlord may want to check the place out thoroughly and at his leisure?

Neither option is particularly inviting. But in a way it is exactly what I had been asking for: Intrigue and adventure. Well, not exactly what I asked for. Maybe next time I will be more specific…

– TOH