Uh, this seat's taken

There are days when taking the train to work in the summer is wonderful and relaxing. The cold air conditioned car welcomes you in from the 95 degree afternoon heat and the seat is comfortable enough that you might actually enjoy a short nap on the way home.

Then there are the other days. For instance it was POURING a couple of days last week and getting on an icy cold train from the oppressively hot outdoors dripping wet was a relief at first and then I began to shiver. I was miserable. However, I will take all of this to not have what happened to me on Wednesday happen again.

The ever present fear of the “Bad B.O. Seat Sharing Passenger.” Oh yes, they are many and in the summer they come out in droves. So on Wednesday a nice man in a beautiful suit slipped into my row of seats. (Mind you, you are always conscious of who is sitting next to you and you hope it’s not the man who reads his New York Times out loud softly or the woman who knits and whacks you in the arm with every stitch she makes… or drops… or the obnoxious person who is talking on their cell phone oblivious to the fact that everyone around him really doesn’t give a crap that he didn’t make his bonus and that his wife spends too much money.) So, my seat-mate on Wednesday was a 40-something, good looking, business men in a gorgeous suit with a French blue shirt with white collar and cuffs (I LOVE those shirts). So as he walks into my row we make the requisite eighth of a second eye contact and acknowledge the other’s presence with a slight upturn at the corners of our mouths. He puts his briefcase down and then begins to take off his jacket…..

NOOOOooooooooooo…

Oh yes, his shirt that was hidden by his beautifully tailored jacket was completely soaked thru with sweat and he smelled. Actually, that’s too kind a word; he REEKED. Oh my God I thought I was going to gag. In fact, I did.

I do feel bad for men and women who still have to wear suits to work. It seems cruel that on a hot, humid summer day one must put on a wool suit and socks, shoes a shirt, tie and jacket and not just expect to stay fresh as daisy the minute they walk out their door but to make it out the door, out to their car or the train, ride said train and then walk from the station to one’s office building. And then complete the same trip back. I do feel for them, I truly do but I feel for me too. Why the hell didn’t he take his jacket off and CARRY it to/on the train? Why couldn’t he have used a whole stick of deodorant/antiperspirant or, for the love of God, why couldn’t he have taken a cab home? He certainly looks like he could have afforded it. So that, my dear friends is another person I will now have to keep an eye out for on the train.

They do say that murderers, pedophiles and other delinquents look “like the guy next door.” Apparently the same holds true for people with bad BO too. This, among other things, is why after this humiliation I now keep a stick of deodorant at work.