Bionic Nose

Sometimes the smells here get to be too much.  When I think of France, I think of freshly baked bread.  Sadly, though, the smell does not match.  Outside, there’s no problem.  The air is fresh and crisp.  Actually, now that I really reflect on it, the air doesn’t feel quite as crisp as it did when I would visit Gma and Gpa in Rumson, NJ.  But maybe I’m not paying enough attention.  The smell gets to be overwhelming when I walk into the lycée every morning.  As soon as I tirez (the command on the door that means “pull”) the door and it closes behind me, I’m enveloped in the smell of adolescence.  And I can tell you, this teen spirit does not smell so good.  I can remember walking into a classroom in high school just after third period or something, after an hour when it had been full of 20 girls.  Yeah, it wasn’t great, but there seemed to at least be the idea of covering up smell with perfume.  Here, though, it’s just perpetually teenage boy.  Then I go into the classroom, and it’s cold inside, so it must have been empty for hours yet it still reeks of “teen spirit.” 

Adults, though, should be my respite right?  I was in the teacher’s lounge today (just waiting around because many students haven’t been showing up thanks to the continued grève) and I was just reading some papers that had been slipped into my casier (locker) when I realized that someone around me had probably not bathed in the last week.  I actually find myself smelling this smell far more often than I’d like to say.  Certainly you know the smell.  It’s generic body odor: nothing special about it except for its ability to make me immediately self-conscious of my proximity to the offender and my desire to hold my breath.  Because I find myself sniffing out this odious odor so much more often now, I actually found myself thinking for a moment that perhaps it was me.  That I was the main offender.  But when it dissipated moments later, I started breathing again and sighed a sigh of relief.

2 stickers from cigarette packs.
"Smoking Kills"
"Smoking can lead to a slow and painful death"

As I walk through the hall throughout the day—this is the hall by my dorm room—I am overcome by the smell of cigarette smoke.  (Not surprising given the number of empty cigarette packs strewn about the road.  Packs with the large stickers on them that say, “Fumer tue.”  Smoking kills.)  There are a few ways that this can come to be.  We’re essentially on the roof of the building, so maintenance workers come up here, go out onto the roof (and the door can’t shut) and take smoke breaks.  This seems rarer, actually, than what I think is actually the true cause, which is Michèle, a mature short, plump woman with bright blue eyes and black eyeliner who I’m pretty sure comes up here throughout the door and goes into her room (she rents one Monday-Thursday nights) and sits out on her balcony puffing away.  It’s strange only because it’s unexpected, really.  Side story about Michèle.  On Friday, she was getting all of her things out of her room before going home for the weekend when she popped into the kitchen to say goodbye.  Everyone’s very polite here.  So, she went into the toilet, which is on the way out and I heard it flush and then she just waltzed out of the building.  This wouldn’t have skeeved me out except that there’s no sink in the bathroom.  We only have them in our bedrooms, so it’s super inconvenient to have to use the restroom while in the kitchen.  I had told my mom that the sinks were in the bedrooms and she said it was because they expect you to do most of your washing in there.  (Whore’s bath, anyone?)  BUT, when I went to Marc’s apartment, they didn’t have a sink in their restroom either, which made me a little suspicious, but I thought maybe they just use the kitchen sink afterwards.  Welp, there go those theories because Michèle makes me think that sometimes you just don’t wash your hands at all.  I will not be bringing this habit back with me.

Out damn'd spotted-ly,

Jess

P.S. I’ll post a real thing tomorrow.  This is to get eager beavers off my back.