I love the smell of ass in the afternoon.

It's been hot here lately. August rolled in and brought 90 degree heat and humidity to go with it. It has been brutal. Yesterday I took little Floogin and Papa McNoogin to see the Mets play a day game. Amazing seats, ten rows behind home plate. Off to the right? The dude who won American Idol (my wife had to point this out to me as I had no clue who the guy was). To the left? Smoking hot blond with Zach Braff. I was going to say hello (we've met, mutual friend and all that) but the dude was so sweaty that I was afraid he'd get his sweat on my sweat and man sweat should never mingle with another man's man sweat.



Behind us, in the box? Couple of hot tv women, maybe actresses. I couldn't figure out who they were but we all recognized them.



Anyway, all this eye candy and people watching and the game itself was a good one. It was my son's first game and he loved it. He was attentive, interested in the game itself, and cheering and clapping and having a blast. My son, like his dad, sweats. A lot. So does his mom. We were all, pretty much, soaked from our own meltage. It was most unpleasant. Even the air conditioned 360 club failed to keep us cool.



The Mets won for a change. It was a blowout. So, we spent the ninth inning in the shop, buying Floogin junior souvenirs and getting his sister a hat (she asked for one). We hopped on the subway and headed home with the crowd. Floogin sat on my lap in the barely air conditioned subway car. More sweat. We split up at Grand Central Station, me heading towards the office, they went home to take showers.



I got back to my office and the enjoyed the cool, refreshing air for an hour and a half and then I grabbed my stuff and headed home. I walk home for two reasons. One, I like the exercise. Two, the subways are brutally hot and, if the street level is brutal, the subways are a death trap.



So, I walk.



Up Seventh Avenue, towards Times Square. The streets are without cars there, set up for walking, sitting and loitering en mass. I first noticed the smell as I crossed 42nd street. It actually smelled like sex. Now, Times Square, and 42nd Street in general, had a reputation for being a hooker filled, porno zone and the stench of warm jizz would be normal, were it 1974 but, sadly, this is the Disney version of Times Square. Joe's Jizz Emporium is now The Lion King. Twatoria Del Twat is now Madame Tussaut's wax museum and Toys for Twats is now Bubba Gump Shrimp. It's sad bit, with that sadness comes the lack of genital stench.



Or so one would think.



I'm walking and sniffing and I'm thinking, ok, it's been a long time since I had sex (with someone else in the room) but that is the smell of hot love. I'm looking around, expecting some bacchanalia type orgy but all I see are fat tourists standing around taking pictures or sitting on their over sized asses, pondering their next feeding.



So, I start mouth breathing, trying to get through this smell zone as fast as I can and it starts to fade. No, not fade. It is no longer as prevalent but it's there. Masked by this new smell that is getting stronger with each step. It's the smell of an overripe, unwiped, sweaty, pungent ass.



It grew worse with each block until it was so bad that I was considering going back a few blocks to enjoy the smell of ball sack.



I moved forward, knowing that the sooner I got home, the sooner I'd be free to breath cleaner air.



But it never got better. Somehow, it got worse.



Imagine, if you will, being held down and some 900 pound tourist from the Midwest, who's been eating only tacos and broccoli and cabbage, walking around the city in the 90 degree heat, wearing a wetsuit, and then dropping trou and settling his brown eye right over your nose, draping his cheeks over your entire face.



Pretty fucking bad, right?



Now imagine him taking a dump.



That's how bad it got.



I looked around to see if anyone else was noticing this. Nobody seemed to be choking. No eyes watering. I know my schnoz is strong. I know it can sense odors that others cannot. Still, this wasn't some faint hint of ass in the air. This was a giant sweaty gorilla ass of biblical stenchage.



I was now a couple of blocks from my apartment and I should have been in the clear. Literally.



And yet, here it was, following me home. Did I walk through some Seinfeldian stench that is following me around, reminding me that there is a hell, and this is how it smells? Did I step in some steamy pile of shit that came from a monster dog? Did I wade through Clifford the Big Red Dog's Big Brown Shit?

I looked around, checked to see who was looking at me. Nobody. I did the foot check. Nothing there.

I glanced around again.

Nobody was looking.

I lifted my arm, pretended to stretch and turned my head to the right, my nose inches from my armpit, I inhaled and.......


I gagged.

It was me. I stunk.

If a thousand animals ate each other's shit and then they died and Louie Anderson and Roseanne Barr had sex on top of these dead animals, eating the animals as they fucked each other, their sweaty love creating a broth for the dead animals, and then they vomited up the meal so that vultures could re-eat their mess and vomit it for Louie and Roseanne to eat again, and then they shit it out? That's how I smelled.

Realizing I was a walking WMD, I picked up my pace, trying to get home before anyone saw me. Or smelled me.

Fuck, were people smelling me and thinking "man, that guy smells like Louie Anderson's shit?

This was horrible.

I raced upstairs, mouth breathing, hoping to not be noticed. I started peeling off my sweaty clothes in anticipation of the cleansing shower, the boxers coming off as I opened the bathroom door. I was greeted by my daughter who was taking a dump in my bathroom since her brother was having a bath in the other bathroom.

"daddy, you smell worse than my poop. get out!"


And so I waited.

I told my wife the story and she said she thought the room smelled bad. I told her I didn't sit on anything and I threw my clothes into the incinerator as soon as I was cleaned, leaving them on the bathroom floor during the shower so that they smell didn't leap onto the carpet.

She says we may have to move.

I'm fucked.