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phantom smell of shit
Monday, December 10 2018
Since I'd created some art, I'd done some drinking before and especially after Sarah's birthday dinner. I'd then taken an ambien before going to bed, pretty sure I hadn't drunk enough to have a hangover tomorrow. And this morning when I woke up this morning, I felt just fine. Things were not all perfect, however; on the way to the brownhouse I was overtaken by a fit of diarrhea so urgent that I had to pull down my sweatpants and shit on the leaves just north of the house. That was a premonition of intestinal comfort that would eventually bother me this afternoon.
But when I arrived at work, I was feeling pretty good, and I managed to get a fair amount done before 2:00pm or so, which is typically when I'm going to start feeling bad at work if I start feeling bad at all. There was, however, a nagging stench that kept haunting me at my desk all day long right from the beginning. It smelled to me like shit, though it could've also been vomit. The problem was, I couldn't see any shit or vomit anywhere. I did a thorough inspection of my footwear, pants, jacket, glasses, and phone. I also looked carefully at the floor and even my chair. Had I accidentally shat myself on the way to the brownhouse this morning? Not from what I could see. But my nose was not going to remain silent on this matter. Beyond this morning's bout with the greenapple quickstep, there were other possibilities: Chales the cat had actually thrown up on both my glasses and my phone this morning while they lay in my "staging area" at the west end of the dining room table. But I'd washed them this morning and went on to wash the glasses again during the workday, and that did no good. Finally, another possible suspect was a large area rug the head honcho had spread out in the middle of the office floor so it could air out. Evidently his dog had been pissing on it, and he thought that with a little air and some baking soda, he might be able to make it right once more. But all I could think was: had somebody also shat on the part of it nearest me? I put my nose over that way and didn't seem to smell anything worse coming from that direction. But the sense of smell is a mysterious thing.
When I could find no environmental source of the shitty smell, I started researching the idea of phantom smells and what that suggests about the person experiencing them. If you're feeling a little queasy in the gut with a touch of hypochondria, I strongly recommend against a Google search on the subject of phantom smells. The first thing I found suggested that anyone smelling things that aren't there is probably about to die of a stroke or some other serious disorder.
As I mentioned, I started feeling pretty bad, mostly in my guts, at around 2:00pm. I've suffered worse feelings at work, and today I was mostly able to keep working. But at around 3:00pm I entertained the notion of perhaps leaving early. Nevertheless, I ended up leaving at 4:40pm, which is about when I usually leave.
When I got home, Gretchen offered that she was about to eat crow. "Do you want to hear why?" she asked. "Sure," I said, "this has never happened!" She then said that the thing I'd been saying about the tenant who sued us was correct, that the insurance company had settled with her behind our back for undisclosed figure, and that was why the case had been dropped in court. I'd said that the paperwork we'd received all seemed to indicate that this was what had happened, but Gretchen had insisted this was an impossibility. And last night at dinner, everyone had agreed with Gretchen and not me on the subject. But today Gretchen had a communication with out insurance-company lawyer, and she owned up that a settlement had indeed happened. She didn't know what it was either (it had been handled by another employee) but that it was probably about $50,000. Curses! It really is true that you can just sue anyone in America and probably end up with some sort of settlement.
This evening, I joined Gretchen in watching most of an old black and white movie called Murder in the Private Car. Perhaps from the title, Gretchen assumed it would be a mystery, but it was more of a slapstick comedy mixed in with something of an action adventure. The plot centers around a young woman propelled into instant wealth with her discovery to be an heiress. Along the way there are some hijinx involving an automobile with a purposefully-drained gas tank and later there is a collision between a passenger train and a train carrying a circus (mostly played for comedy). At the end come a long "chase" sequence involving a run-away train doing many of the things done today in car chases, though last-second collisions are avoided here mostly by track operators throwing switches at precise moments. It was certainly not a great movie, but it was surprisingly watchable despite the musty old humor, casual racism, and other things affecting productions of that period.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?181210 feedback
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