April 22, 2015

You arrive to class, sit in your usual spot and prepare yourself for ‘her.’

You smell her coming before she even arrives.

As luck would have it, she sits next to you on your left hand side.

You fear the approaching steps she takes to reach her seat.

As if it isn’t bad enough that you get smacked in the face with the god-awful scent as she shimmies her thang past your sniffer, you have to endure the entire hour and fifteen minutes bathing in the wretchedness.

It isn’t necessarily an unfortunate scent, it’s just so dang strong!

Perfume not only gives me headaches and nausea, it assaults my nostrils and loiters there for what feels like hours.

Stepping into the fresh air doesn’t offer relief, the perfume follows me everywhere, like my own personal gloomy raincloud in the form of nostril interference.

I can’t say if there is a harmful effect of inhaling too much perfume, but judging by the way I feel after that class, I can only assume there is.

I’ve held my breath till I felt blue, dreamt about strapping a car freshener to my face and even attempted to turn off my scent receptors; nothing works.

So what would you do? Grin and bear it?

No, there is not a grin to be had when I feel death by stench on the horizon.

Do I pipe up and tell her that the amount of perfume she uses in one spritzing session would be enough to cover 14,000 sweaty tweens screaming for One Direction at a concert in the Bradley Center?

No, I’m afraid that would be just too harsh.

I’m sure she doesn’t mean to be a walking fragranced magazine page.

Is there a good way to tell her to tone down the tidal wave?

Perhaps I’ll just move seats.

If you’ve ever encountered an “overperfumed” you can understand my gripe.

Maybe I’ll start a club for all of those victimized by the “overperfumers” and those who struggle with a perfume addiction themselves.

Until that day, we’ll revel in the ultimate question together: could she ever just not douse herself in the entire bottle before arriving to class?

Probably not, that would be common sense, not common scents.