To stink or not to stink

As a group Seattlites smell really bad. As I've mentioned before, a lot of people eschew society's demand that they don't smell like animal feces.* Maybe DC smelled equally bad and I managed to not notice for 8 years, but I can't think of a single city I've been to in the world that has a populace this funky. It's one of the things that just puts you over the edge on marginally bad days. All I wanted on Monday was to go home. Instead, I had to endure human stink for the duration of my bus ride, and then again as I walked past the beggars who hang near my post office.

Obviously this sounds callous, and my heart goes out to these people, but Seattle doesn't seem to lack shelters, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I'd love to help if I knew how.

Anyhoo, this is all a lead-in to a story about my experimentation with stinking myself. Soon after moving to Seattle I heard someone talking about how people were starting to link the aluminum in anti-persperant with Alzheimer's. For some reasons I decided that I should immediately stop using products with aluminum... so I went and found some Al-free deodorant.

Now, here's the thing. I'm pretty lucky when it comes to body type in some ways: I'm not hairy. and I don't sweat a lot. I figured this, combined with Seattle's mild climate, would allow me to go anti-persperant free without adverse consequences.

Turns out I was mostly right.

I tried it for a week (this was WAY back in March or April). It wasn't a disaster. No one ever mentioned anything, and I couldn't smell anything amiss as long as I was wearing a shirt, but there were a couple of evenings when I'd change shirts in order to go to the gym and I picked up a certainy, well, funk. That had me worried, but my experiment didn't end until I rode the bus on a particularly warm morning and actually felt myself sweating. It was 8:30am, and I realized that I really was taking a gamble with this whole experiment. Sure, I might not be stinky in the context of a Seattle city bus, but what if I went out for a post work drink and met a girl? There's no explaining away manstink.

And so, I continue to apply a thin layer of aluminum every morning. I wish my fellow Seattlites would do the same.

* To be honest, that may be insulting to animal feces