Thaumasmus (thau-mas’-mus): To marvel at something rather than to state it in a matter of fact way.
This is totally unbelievable. It’s like meeting a shark in a movie theater rest room or having a toad jump out of an orange you’re about to peel and eat, or seeing your grandma levitating over her bed pan.
Unprecedented!
I was taking a shower two days in a row! Don’t cry for me Argentina. I have adopted a new hygiene regime. I’m tired of people saying “What’s that smell?” when I approach them. And then, when I get close to them, they say things like “I smell raw onions” or “Did you roll in fertilizer?”
Until now, taking a shower has always been a choice for me—a sort of political statement and expression of my autonomy. I cut back to once-a-month in the sixties when everybody had an axe to grind. My smell went with my long hair and beard. People would say: “Where did you get that righteous smell, Dude?” Or “Far out on the odor, man.” I was a walking talking site of protest. I had a slogan I would chant in elevators and other closed places: “if you don’t like my smell, go ahead and go to hell.” When I said it in an elevator people would applaud and yell “Right on, man. Stink man, stink—stink it to the man.”
I was on top of my game. I had a purpose in life. I smelled. I wafted. I showed all those sweet-smelling losers that they were victims of the odor industry, masking the smells God gave them to find peace, love and happiness on the ripe winds of B.O.
It is 1980 now and those days are gone over. Now, my odor is seen as a sign of neglect and even neurosis. I had smelled the way I had smelled for over a decade and my world was falling apart. I had no friends and I had trouble keeping a job due to my smell. My last job was at McDonald’s. I thought the smell of the kitchen would mask my B.O., but it didn’t. People said my smell was ruining their meals. I was fired. As I was going out the door a woman grabbed me by the arm. She smelled like me. She said: “I know what you’re going through, dude.”
She has saved my life.
We sat on a park bench and started talking. Her name was Chive and she said she was tired of catcalls and abuse for her smell. She realized she couldn’t change the world. She was ready for a change. She had a paper bag with two bars of Dial Soap in it. We went to her place and showered together. It was ecstasy. We vowed to start with two showers per week and then, eventually a shower every day would be our goal.
There I was, holding the soap and waiting for Chive.
We were only at day two, but given that we showered together, I was converted. It was wonderful. I was sure that after today our smells would be controlled.
I was so grateful that Chive had come into my life—so suddenly, just at the right time.
The sixties were groovy, but wow, the eighties were going to be dope. After a week, we were already set to be married and had already settled on the name of our first child: Glade.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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