I’m Surrounded By Nuts!

This morning I was reminded of an incident that took place while I was in college. I was friends with a large group of very diverse people and we were all involved with the local college radio station. I was the News Director and had a couple of shows. One was a talk show the other a mid-day “All-request Friday” show. There were several other executive postions that were filled by other students and of course we filled all of the on-air slots as well. If you know anything about college radio then you know that it’s usually pretty raw, unscripted and not exactly professional, and the students that are involved are usually not the most professional either.

Most of the executive positions were filled by vote and all of the station members were given the opportunity to nominate and vote for the best person to hold various duties. We weren’t paid we just got the glory and recognition of being local radio personalities and we thought we were pretty cool. In reality I think that we were the most eclectic mix of mismatched students to walk the school campus and many of us were pretty geeky. I’m not saying that I was geeky (of course not), just that there were quite a few people associated with the radio station that would be considered “geeks”. (Kind of like the audio/visual club geeks from high school…..get it? They transitioned well into college radio!)

So during my Sophomore year there was only one person who wanted and was nominated for the more complex position of Station Manager. His name was Mike. Mike was a really nice guy and he was perfect for the job. He had “High School Audio/Visual Club” written all over him and he was not only flattered that we would nominate him and vote him in but he was also extremely proud to take on the role of Station Manager (and we were way to nice to tell him that he only got the job because no one else wanted it).

As nice and as hard-working and as wonderful as Mike was he had one fatal flaw……he may have had more but this was the only one we saw, or rather smelled because it was so overwhelming that it was hard not to notice. He smelled, BAD. The problem was that Mike was a smoker and I was also convinced that he wasn’t a friend of the laundromat. Oh, and he wore the same jeans jacket every day, and maybe the same jeans but no one ever asked so we’re not positive about his pants. Combine the smell of smoke with the smell of a daily worn jeans jacket that may never have seen a washing machine and you have a recipe for disaster. The real problem was that while we could smell this pungent odor, he could not.

It truly was an offensive odor and since no one ever said anything about it, I thought that I must have super human smell ability! Then one evening while I was sitting around with a group of friends from the station the “Mike Smells Talk” occurred. Mike wasn’t there so it was a great opportunity to get it out in the open. We all sat in disbelief as each one of us ripped on Mike about how horrible he smelled. Everyone went on and on with stories that included having to be in the sound room with him (a small 5X5 room) for hours, to leaving meetings early and coming up with lies in an effort to get away from him. He was clueless! So we devised a plan whereby my friend Janelle would take Mike aside and tell him as kindly as possible that he needed to do something about his odiferousness (my made up word). They were really good friends and I’m pretty sure that he wanted to be more than just her friend so Janelle was the best person for the job, hands down.

She reported back a few days later that her conversation with Mike had been a fabulous success. She gave him great suggestions as to how to get cleaned up and stay clean. She was comprehensive in her conversation to include what detergent to use, how to do laundry, how not to smoke in confined places etc. She was thorough and Mike took it all very well. She convinced him that this was not anything that had been publicly discussed (lie) and that talking to him was all her idea (lie X 2).

Mike’s transformation was noticeable. The following week is was apparent that he had taken Janelle’s advice. He smelled “decent”, had bought new cologne, was non offensive and we were all very pleased with our friend…..but that was short lived. Eventually the odor returned and our group rallied Janelle to the rescue one more time but it was in vain. She felt that she had done all that she could and aside from offering to do his laundry for him none of us could come up with another option, Mr. Stinky was back and more pungent than ever, with the new scent of Polo to attempt to mask what could never be contained.

I swear to you, I can still recall that smell and that was 18 years ago. After reading what I’ve written I have to wonder whatever happened to Mike; what did he do after college? What career path did he follow? Did he marry and have little Mr. Stinkies? Most importantly did he ever clean up his act for good, start doing laundry on a regular basis and give up smoking forever?? Fear has trapped me from finding the answers to my questions……the fear that I may smell that smell again if I go looking, and it’s really not worth knowing!