stank

You know you’re in France when you may encounter, at any given moment, natural odors of the human body.

That’s right; I’m talking about B.O.  It shows up most anywhere, without discretion.  Choir practice.  The post office.  Riding the train.  Sitting in a café.  The French, as a people, seem to not be habituated to wearing deodorant.

So, when two weeks ago I ran out of my supply of Old Spice “Pure Sport”-scented deodorant that I brought with me to France, I wasn’t really worried about sticking out from the crowd.  In normal circumstances, I would have solved this problem with relative speed, as I generally find personal hygiene and odor control to be an important habit.

However, as you may have noticed from the last almost four months of blog entries, I am not living in normal circumstances.  Whereas in Seattle one can easily find the sprawling deodorant section at local Safeways, Fred Meyers, Bartells, and maybe even some convenience stores, there isn’t necessarily a section designated for deodorant in French grocery stores.  At least that’s what I discovered when buying some food at a store called “Ed” (?) near my apartment several days later, shocked that after several attempts I could not find where the deodorant was.

Thus, in an attempt to live life à la française (or maybe more due to laziness), I simply gave up the search for a while, instead considering that perhaps Americans are crazy, and maybe armpits don’t really smell that bad.

Let me pause here before we get any farther: Americans are absolutely, completely, 100% correct about body odor and the need for deodorant.  I would even go so far as to argue that it is sometimes more necessary than the things Americans deem most important, like freedom or big screen televisions or breakfast.

In the 1.5 deodorantless weeks that followed, I came to learn that, much to my dismay, my armpits emit a potent stench.  Often, and at inconvenient times.  In the middle of a lesson, for example, when I had to pause while writing on the chalkboard to hide my face of personal disgust.  Or when passing the salad to one of my roommates at dinner and hoping that the odor didn’t contaminate the defenseless lettuce and tomatoes.  Or even in the freaking shower, after having already scrubbed my armpits.  What the crap?!?

For a while, I simply put up with it, not caring enough to make the mall trek to the big grocery store, Carrefour, and finally buy some deodorant.

But, it all came to a head yesterday at a department store as I tried on some dress shirts for my choir concert.  This process, involving raised arms and removing and putting on shirts, exposed me to my own smell for about 10 minutes straight.  It was terrible.  So terrible, in fact, that I actually stopped what I was doing and left the store, finally forced by necessity to buy some new deodorant.

Five minutes later, I was skimming the pitiful selection of the foot-wide, two-shelf deodorant section in Carrefour.  No Old Spice.  Actually, the only American brand was Axe, but if you know me, you know that I don’t like the smell of douchebag and/or junior high boy.  There were only weird French brands, and they were expensive.

But the circumstances were dire, and I couldn’t bear my own B.O. any longer.  So, I found a half-decent-smelling stick, coughed up about $6.50 and waited 25 minutes in the longest grocery store line of my life to alleviate the deep physical and emotional trauma I was experiencing.

For the record, never in the 2 weeks sans deodorant did I receive one comment, nor did I feel out of place or insecure.  As I said, it’s not unusual to disregard B.O. in this country.  And even if someone had made a comment, I honestly don’t think it would have changed anything.  It was only when I became bothered did I spring into action, because the only people who suffered day in and day out were me, myself and I.

That’s one of the great things I’ve appreciated about France, actually: learning how to simply not care what other people think of you.

I exercised this complete disregard as I left Carrefour, literally stopping in the middle of the mall, setting down my bag, and raising one arm at a time and sticking the other under my shirt to apply the sweet-smelling substance to my stank pits.  It was instant satisfaction, even amid stares and comments from confused mall shoppers.

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