Hazardous Substance

Perfume should be legally declared unlawful to wear in public between the hours of 6am and 6pm. Its primary use should be confined to the privacy of one's own home. Wearing it in public is hazardous to some people's (my) health.

We are first confronted with this substance at the crack of dawn. You guessed it, in the condo elevator. There you have several men and women squashed against you, all bombarding you with their "signature." As you try to recover from this attack, you are assailed again on public transportation if you are unfortunate enough to use it. This time though, magnify your elevator experience by at least thirty extra bodies. By the time you leave the train or bus, you're halfway asphyxiated.

Is relief in sight I ask you? No way! There's usually another elevator at your job to navigate. Once past that obstacle, for women there's the dreaded ladies room where women are spraying on still more perfume. Not cologne mind you, but PERFUME, the heavy duty, industrial strength kind. Could they possibly believe it evaporated in the time it took them to get from home to the office? Or maybe with everyone's perfume battling each other on the elevator and bus they feel they have to reassert their fragrance's dominance.

I seriously wonder if there is something wrong with people's sense of smell or if it's only me. Something isn't right anytime I can identify a person by their fragrance before I see them. Do people actually think wearing ten tons of fragrance is sexy? What could possibly be sexy about needing a gas mask to get within ten feet of a person? Whatever happened to the good old days when you had to "getthisclose" to smell a person's perfume? Did it change to "drench me" while I was off in search of some fresh air.

What makes it worse; men are now as bad as women. At least with women you can usually identify the fragrance. With men, it all smell like bug spray to me. From this double assault, it's a wonder people aren't walking around with faces like prunes trying not to inhale these toxic fumes. It should be mandatory that perfume print ads and commercials issue warnings proclaiming overuse to be hazardous to the environment and people's health. Every bottle should carry the warning: USE WITH CAUTION: POTENT LIQUID. Failure to comply with this law should result in a fine and confinement in a locked, windowless room with the offender's fragrance sprayed in continuously for twelve hours. Let them have a taste of what others suffer through twelve hours a day because of them.

Oh, by the way, on your way home avoid the elevator you came to work on. It still hasn't aired out from this morning.