Thursday, May 11, 2006

Welcome to Cooterville


Last year around this time I visited a friend of mine who was living in a very prestigious apartment building in Northwest Washington (it's even featured in the book "Best Addresses: A Century of Washington's Distinguished Apartment Houses"). Upon my arrival, he informed me that he was having a problem with one of the building's female front-desk clerks. When I asked him what kind of problem I figured she was probably a typical rude D.C. service employee or perhaps his packages weren't being delivered in a timely fashion.

"There's an odor issue," my friend explained. "The whole lobby smells like poontang whenever she's working." Huh? How on earth would he -- or could he -- determine this? I'd been sexually assaulted by more than my share of teenage girls back in the day, but never to the point that I was even familiar with such, uh, fragrance.

My friend told me the reason he was so certain of the source of the foul smell was because it was the same stench he encountered as a a kid visiting his ailing grandmother. Still not satisfied I asked how he knew what it was then and he said he'd asked his mother back then who explained that granny was old and "couldn't wash her cooter on a regular basis anymore."

As funny horrifying as this whole story was, he then proceeded to tell me that he'd actually approached his building manager about "the problem."

"You did what?" I asked in horror. "So you walked up to the manager and told him the lady at the desk's vagina reeks?" He said it was so bad he felt compelled to do something about it -- for the sake of the entire building. So he discreetly told the manager that the woman had a "feminine hygiene issue" that needed to be addressed. (He claims the manager didn't bat an eye at this assertion although I find this hard to believe.)

Shortly thereafter my friend moved to a new building that has no doorman or front desk. I'm happy for him.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your friend's line that he did all for the good of building! Yeah, riiiiiiiight.

:-)

Anonymous said...

That's the most bizarre story I've ever heard. (If I were a woman it would piss me off -- it already kind of pisses me off.) I don't believe for a second he could really smell any such thing. He may have thought he could, but I would argue for the power of suggestion.

Anonymous said...

I dont want to cause any more pain, but I know exactly what he is talking about. I have been subjected to that odor, most recently from a coworker that I shared a cramped office. It is a distinct smell and can overpower an entire room.

Anonymous said...

I, too, have suffered through a similar situation. It's not a very common smell, and some of us seem to be more in tune with the odor than others... I had a male student who reeked of the "pooh-tang" smell. I mentioned something about him having just had sex, and he wondered how I knew. I told him I could smell it. There were two other guys in the room, and neither of them could smell it. I told him the smell was so distinctive that I would recognize the girl by her smell. Two weeks later, I was at a large function in which the student was in attendance. A group of girls walked by, one of which had that smell. I looked at her, at the male student, and nodded my head. His mouth fell open in disbelief that I my nose was so fine-tuned. I again asked if anyone with me could smell it. They couldn't.