Though I am no henchperson of the deodorising industry, though I refuse to police the pore, though it pains me to know that fully grown humanians anxiously bedaub their every nook and cranny with (in parfumiers' parlance) toilet water, I was almost converted to a policy of government-mandated full-body unguentation this morning when a gent sat next to me on the tram smelling from head to toe of ripe foot. There one is, scoffing at the Lynx Effect, telling all and sundry that nutmeg and water and a change of clothes every couple of weeks served one's ancestors for generations, when suddenly one is mere centimetres away from a genuinely smelly man, a man who pongs as if he's winched himself into a rubber jumpsuit for six months and run laps of the Sahara, occasionally tucking a dead mouse up his oxter.
He was probably a genius mathematician, or clever with his garden, or a kind soul with a fondness for small mammals - but I am so busy trying not to wretch that I never find out.
Oh nose, you do him wrong.
13 comments:
Oxter, now them thar's a purdy word.
Ain't it just. I learned him from an A. D. Hope pome.
Oh there is nothing worse than this except thinking that it could be transferred never to leave my clothes. Nephew has inherited pong feet from his father, and it torments him. I worry about his cat though, it likes to put its head in his shoes. Addicts will do anything for a high.
Two of our cats are very deeply attached to my thongs. It's so cute seeing them curled up asleep on the rug, each with a thong in his littel furry arms.
But I wanted to know more about the nutmeg and water.
When I come to write the dramatic novelisation of my life, I think I'll make name the two cockney rapscallions who kidnap me from my aristocratic parents and sell me into penury Armpit and Oxter.
Nephew's cat sounds like a fine piece of work. Beasts like this are put on earth to reassure us that even our most anti-social attributes can be endearing, to the right nose.
Tartan, I might have made that up about the nutmeg, but I still hold that there are low-tech approaches to the human aroma that don't involve pasting one's sweat glands with industrial strength de-pong. Not so effective in high summer, though.
Please do, Tim. Me mum calls them "Charmpits".
Farmpits: a Slimerick
There was an old man with an arm,
Who said, "I'm full of afright and alarm!"
Two worms and a flea,
A giraffe and a bee
Have all made a nest in my arm!
Obnoxters
A strapping young fellow wore jocksters
That reached all the way up to his oxters.
He said - "Delicate noses
Prefer Eaux de Roses -
And so I wear oversized jocksters!"
Celia's amazing armpits
Celia had amazing armpits -
With an ability to charm which
Astonished all with a proboscis.
Eventually, they won her Oscars.
Oh, dear. You cast a superfluous 'w', you wretch. Time for lexical expansion.
Ouch, lexical expansion. Sounds painful.
You get a chocolate frog, Anon., for excellence in orthography. I'll leave my -w- as a testament to papal fallibility (or sumthin).
This is for you, T:
There is a wee laddy called Moses
Whose oxters do tickle our noses.
He keeps a dead marmot
Inside of his arm't
And verily it decomposes.
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