RE: Take a bathe.

Oooh, do I have some things to say about this!

I have empathy for people on both sides of this debate. I myself have taken several full-day (or longer) bus trips, and I don't mean tour bus or party bus, I mean Greyhound. Pretty much everyone on the bus smells. All the people at the bus station smell, and the people outside the bus station... well, my eyes watered a little bit just thinking about them.

However, I have also been in public situations where I smelled, but there was just nothing I could do about it. I was once asked to leave a pre-employment skills testing event, because of several complaints about MY odor. I showered before hand, like a reasonable person, but at the time I didn't have a car, and my ride canceled. This was before Uber (this was back when 'the internet' was still AOL!), and there are no cabs or public transit to take out here, so I had to walk to that skills test, for about 3 1/2 hours, on a day that was about 90°F and very humid. Oh yeah, I stank, and I stank bad, but there was NO day I could reschedule to. Missing that test meant not getting the job, and at the time, I REALLY needed the job!

Now, I sweat and work in foul smelling materials (road tar and sealants) all day long during the spring, summer, and fall seasons, and sometimes I have to stop at the store on my way home from work. I'm courteous enough to keep my distance from people, and I get my shopping done quickly. I actually like going to the store with this smell now, because people keep their distance from ME.

There's actually some interesting studies showing that whether or not we find a person's body odor offensive correlates to which diseases each of our immune systems are better adapted to.

I don't want to normalize BO, by any means, but I understand that sometimes you just can't help but stink, and sometimes you're the only who thinks a person stinks!

About that skills test... the company called me and left a message on my answering machine before I walked home... I got the job. I had completed several of the skill assessments nearly twice as fast as any of the other participants, so to this day, I believe some of the complaints were jealousy!