Price of a fan: $50. Price of clean air: Priceless.

A word or two about smells to working professionals everywhere.

Lunch:
So it's really important you have lunch away from your desk and/or work area as much as you can. Seriously, you work hard- take a break. You should eat your lunch in the kitchen or, if your company does not have a kitchen, outside in the nice, bright sun. Yes, bask in its life giving rays and contemplate the meaning of life while you munch on your curry chicken.

Do not eat lunch at your desk.

Do not eat lunch at your desk especially if you work in a cube or newsroom-setting where there are no walls to protect the innocent from the stench-emanating piece of steaming crap on your plate that you think is food but is really a rotting piece of whale flesh. Or at least smells like it.

I used to eat tuna sandwiches at my desk but I cut that shit out after a few weeks because my coworkers complained. Fine. Great. I did it out of respect to my colleague's olfactory sensibilities. But let's face it, tuna is a mild offender compared to, oh, I don't know, a bowl of vinegar!

(As I sit here writing this post, I can't help but wish I could walk over to the vineger offender and dump said bowl of vinegar over his or her head. I'm sure it isn't actually a bowl of vinegar but with all the weird fad diets out there today, it's in the realm of possibility. In any case, it smells positively foul.)

Herein lies my first tip of the day: If dogs howl, flowers die and wavy green lines hover above your food when you bring it out of the microwave, don't bring it back to your desk lest you risk the sound of gagging, and the eventual smell of vomit that will result from your actions.

Perfume/Cologne/Lotion:
There is a woman, who shall remain nameless, that uses a very pungent floral lotion. Lotions usually have a very mild smell- whether they smell of baked goods (my personal favorite), vanilla, flowers or fruits, they're usually appealing and harmless.

However, there are some lotions- and I'm grouping perfumes and colognes in this as well- that just make me want to rip off my nose and shove it down people's throats while I scream out, "Take it! You've ruined it forever!"

Isn't it enough I have to put up with the same people day-in and day-out for 8+ hours, 5 consecutive days out of the week? Do they really have to destroy my sense of smell too?

This woman's lotion smells, not of a singular flower- sweet and innocent- but of an entire fucking glade of flowers. Imagine plumeria shoved down your nostrils. Imagine the entire world, covered in plumeria, and the fumes being so strong as to have killed 99.9% of the population and all the dead plants are now potpurri and the remaining humans have to eat the dead, smelly, husks of flowers to survive.

Yeah, imagine that and you have now entered my world.

Her lotion is so strong that it doesn't last for just a few minutes. Not even for half an hour. No, folks, it lasts for HOURS. I don't know who makes this lotion but MY GOD, if they could somehow extract the potency and endurance of the smell and put it into foodstuff, world hunger would no longer exist.

I'm sure her lotion has directly affected sales of Excedrine because I have had so many migraines caused by the stench that I literally go through a bottle at a time when she slathers it on.

Herein lies my second tip of the day: If you see a coworker cringing or burst into tears when you bring out your bottle of lotion, or if you pass by someone on the street and they turn green and start hacking out a lung, it's sign that you stink. So cut that stinky shit out.

-Signing off in Seattle

'STEP DOWN!' Gettin' Off the MUNI

Things of relative interest I noted on my MUNI ride to work.

Salient avoidance of eye and body contact. Sunglasses on a non-sunny bus, iPods and the impressive ability to keep arms and legs tightly bound to the body - quite similar to that of a mummy.

*****

On a similar note, men with sunglasses, blazers and jeans. For no apparent reason, this combination bothers me. I see them on the bus all the time, and call me persnickety, but I can't help but raise my eyebrow every time I see one.

*****

I saw a fully grown woman going to work toting a snoopy backpack. This made me smile. Very nice.

(And I'm not being sarcastic, for once.)

-Signing off from San Francisco