Due to a tragic laundering error involving a potty-training toddler’s underwear and the family’s general laundry comingling in the dark recesses of my washing machine, I went to the gym today smelling like…
At first I couldn’t figure it out as the scent of fecal matter was faint and sporadic. I checked my kids’ diapers before sending them off to be cared for by others while I pursued a self-indulgent activity and they were a-ok. I didn’t smell it again until the weight floor when I was halfway through Ms. Michael’s circuits (that are a serious workout if you do them twice through in under 40 minutes – yeah, baby!). Gingerly, I peeled up my sweat-soaked tank top and sniffed. Nothing but Downy freshness dampened with body odor – just like it should be. But then I lifted up the bottom hem. I was a human TURD SCRATCH-N-SNIFF STICKER.
Right as I came to this embarrassing conclusion, Gym Buddy Megan looked right at me and said, “I smell.” I waited her to finish her sentence with “… the business end of a baby” but she didn’t. So I finished it for her. “It’s me,” I hung my head in shame, “I smell like poo.”
“What?” She looked confused. “No, I smell. I stink. Seriously.” She even sniffed her own armpit for good measure. (Yes, we are beloved on the weight floor.) “Whooo-eee!”
The Question
After Megan and I established that while we could both smell our own offensive scents neither of us could smell the other’s, then it was Gym Buddy Allison’s turn. In Spin class she kept making funny faces. At first I thought it was just the sweat dripping off her nose but finally she declared, “I can’t wipe my sweat off. My towel smells like a skunk.”
“Why?”
“I dunno, I washed it last night!”
“Well then I’m sure it smells fine.”
“It doesn’t. It reeks. I think the handlebars on my cycle contaminated it.”
“You think a skunk was the previous occupant of your cycle?”
She glared at me.
“Fine, give me your towel.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, now I have to smell it. Gimme.”
She handed over her towel. I sniffed it. It smelled like skunk.
All of which begs an interesting question and one recently posed to me by the entertaining Chris (Illuminati) from phillyBurbs (true story: I used to live in Philly) while interviewing me for his site. “Can I tell the person on the treadmill next to me at the gym that he/she stinks?”
The Answer
Whether it be last night’s curry or that new garlic toothpaste (hey it’s all natural!), people bring a variety of noxious smells with them to the gym. It was pointed out on here before that even perfume becomes toxic within the stale fan-circulated confines of the cardio floor. We all know it isn’t polite in normal society to point out someone’s pungency but the gym has a way of bringing out the worst – both in people’s B.O. and in their manners. So what do you think? Speak up or forever gag your peace? What’s your favorite foul gym odor?
PS> Yes, I showered. Then I rewashed that entire load of laundry, sans undies, with bleach. While I was in the basement my toddler pooped on the carpet. Such is motherhood.
and this all makes me think of matthew mcconaughey and how he’s known for saying he doesnt wear deodorant and loves his own ‘odor’
M.
“You think a skunk was the previous occupant of your cycle?”
Totally cracked me up.
Fortunately (or unfortunately for those around me) I don’t seem to have a very sensitive nose. Someone has to be REALLY rank before I’ll notice, so I’m rarely bothered.
On the weekends I usually exercise and clean the house before taking a shower, so I smell like someone on the bus by the time I’m through with everything…not to mention that I sweat like nobody’s business. No offense to bus people!
For some reason I only ever seem to notice my own stank (which, unfortunately, I don’t find as appealing as McConaughey does his). I like to blame it on the “high-tech microfibers” — don’t they hang on to odors, or something?
Really funny!!
Glad I don’t eat breakfast…
Dr. J
PS Glad I don’t have to type in those bizarre letters also 🙂
Hilarious!! Look, I know I smell at the gym. Some times worse than others, depending on when I last washed my tank top and if I have been plagued by a fit of “passing wind” (or whatever polite euphemism you can think of) which frequently happens to me when I’m jumping around at the gym.
Could this be why no one ever wants the treadmill next to me?
😉
If someone told me I smelled, I’d probably say something like “duh, than don’t stand next to me” and try to look busy….
OH- and my injury is almost healed! Feels more like just a tight shoulder now. No more shooting pains! Going back to my regularly scheduled workouts soon.
YAY!
Although in the past 6 days of NOT working out, I’ve baked 4 batches of muffins and cleaned the house. it’s amazing how much more time and energy I have!
I don’t smell so I don’t know what your’re talking about…I do however seem to have a slight problem with my lock-gas-in-valve.
Fitarella had the funniest post yesterday, it made my day! I’m so glad I’m not the only one plagued by nature! 🙂
Aha that video is great. I always worry that I smell. Consequently there is gum, deodorant, soap and hand lotion in just about every one of my bags. But I figure if there was ever a really big problem someone would feel obliged to hint darkly at it (I love the dark hints. Such a polite way to get the point across:)).
Hilarious! I’m so sorry you had the odors of poo and skunk lingering in your nose, but your account of the whole experience cracked me up! 🙂
i think people dont care when they go to the gym because there are so many other people arounf that theres not way and rank odor can get pinned on one person.
im speaking of odor of the gas variety. cause that seems to be what i walk through most at the gym.
Charlotte- i think you can relate any situation and make it funny!!
We have the same poo incident here every once in a while, too!
We had this convo after Kick boxing last night and decided it was really rude to tell someone they smelled while at the gym. Hey, move to another treadmill…
My beef isn’t B.O. since my sniffer doesn’t have much range as much as personal space on the treadmills. If there is room on our row of 10, I always leave a “polite space” buffer of 1 machine around people. But I get people that mount up right next to me, even when there are other availabilities to observe the unspoken law; well, more of a guideline.
C’mon…who hasn’t smelled their own armpit? Charlotte, I promise I’ll tell you if I ever think you smell like poo.
By the way, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being on the treadmill next to an old lady who smelled like she smoked a pack of Marlboros right before coming in to “work out”. I felt like I had just come out of a sports bar by the end of my run.
No, don’t tell them! I think we all know we stink at the gym and some people just can’t help the level of stink they make. I have a drop dead gorgeous sister who, I’m guessing to keep balance in the universe, has a bad BO problem and she spends her whole life trying to fix, stop, or hide it. So, why hurt her by pointing out something she already knows?
And as for poop stories… I had a friend’s son finger paint my entire bathroom in his own “paint.” I still have bad dreams about that day.
I’ve asked myself this millions of times so I will put it out for group discussion…How do the really bad smelling people not SMELL THEMSELVES?
The minute I smell something bad I think ‘is that me?’
It’s usually the woman working out next to me that smells like she bathed in poop, but that’s another matter….
Just discovered your blog through Jen’s Survival of the Fittest. I shed a tear reading about your poo story. I was definitely laughing with you, not at you, because I have my share of poo stories. This one, though, was lovely. Toddlers–especially potty training toddlers–can be pretty sneaky about their poo, which can have disastrous consequences (as you know). It is my experience that they don’t like poo in their diaper, so they just take it off, where ever they may be and leave it. By the time I get around to finding it, the dog has been there before me and “relieved me” of any clean up, thereby preventing the poo from making it into the washing machine.
Now it’s possible to pick up lots of the offerings from Swtor Market 😀