Smelly

This morning as I was getting ready to work on my homework and write an article for my next submission I got a good whiff of B.O., and where did that BO come from?  Oh that would be me.  Yikes.  Of course it is all due to the fact I had spent most of yesterday sweating up a storm.  Not because I was doing some serious working out, or serious work outside, but because I happen to be in that time of my life where every once in awhile I burst into flames from the inside out.  Genetically speaking I have a tendency to run on the warm side anyway, both parents were constantly heat generators, and I haven't fallen too far from that tree.  So add to my natural state a new and wholly unwelcome hormonal trippy thing my body temperature runs between really warm and middle of the sun hot. 

Anyway so here I am this morning all ready to write and I have to go and take a shower so I can handle hanging around myself.  This got me thinking about how effectively we as a society have been brainwashed against ourselves.  Think about it for a second...how long do you figure people have been using antiperspirant?  Fifty years...sixty....seventy...even a hundred?  That isn't even a drip in the bucket of time that people have been on this planet.  So just a very short time ago people walked around smelling like...well people, not flowers, baby powder, spring rain, or riding lawn mower.  (Yes riding lawn mower is an actual scent that the people who sell mandles - man-candles - make.  And yeah, mandles, is another story.)  But here we are today being disgusted when we smell body odour on each other, and even ourselves.  Is it because it is so vile that we cannot stand to be in the same smell space as another human who smells like a human?  I think not.  In fact I remember when my dad used to come home from the bush smelling like camp fire, pipe tobacco, and yes, body odour, and thinking that he smelled wonderful.  The real reason we cannot tolerate the smell is because we have be programmed by the companies who make the stuff which covers it up.

We have also been programmed by the companies who make razors that hair anywhere on our body except our head is unsightly and gross.  I admit that I have been indoctrinated into that mind set as well. "Oh gross, she has long hair under her nylons."  Or, "Look she's hiding two hamsters under her arms."  I spend time trying to keep the eyebrow hair which escaped from my forehead and took up residence on my chin from taking permanent root.  I really don't want to start sporting a small goatee at this time of my life.  But had I been born a century prior to this I may have thought that it was cool, now I am getting to the crone stage of life.  Wise, wonderful, and not giving a flying fuck what anyone thinks about my appearance.

Things that humans have been taught/programmed to do/be/say/act like/eat/appear to be -

1. We smell bad so slap on some deodorant.
2. We're hairy buggers who look gross so scrape/pluck/rip/or burn that stuff off.
3. Our lungs are too pink so we need to suck in some burning weeds.  Plus it will make you look cool and don't worry about the side effects.
4. We've been walking around for a few million years now and got that down pat so we need to make it more challenging, especially for the females, so wedge a stick under the heels of the shoes and make everyone walk around on their tiptoes.  Plus it will make your ass look better. 
5. Our faces are blotchy and lacking in colour, so smear some coloured mud on.
6. OMG we are getting old, time to cut/snip/bleach/tighten/botox the shit out of your face so it is permanently set in a fake youthful stare.
7. Oh the humanity!  We have rolls, cellulite, pot bellies, jigglies, and extra chins...quick eat carbs only, now protein only, now only vegies, only fruit, no fruit at all, lots of eggs, no eggs, oils, no oils, drink lots of water, drink only urine, or juice, and jump up and down while you do it.