A good friend will smell a stranger's coat with you

A few months ago, during a celebratory pre-Christmas bar crawl, I found a discarded winter coat at the foot of my stool on the floor of a bar.  My first drunken impulse was to smell it.  I smiled a weird, guilty yet delighted smile as I brought it to my nose, knowing full well that it was a socially unacceptable thing to do, but also knowing that my nasal curiosity would always win over social grace.  The outside smelled faintly woodsy; I ventured to the inside of the jacket, a soft furry dark blue lining that carried an androgynous pine scent.  It was heavenly, like a slice of home; I could almost see the evergreens towering above me, hear the creaking of wooden trunks and feel the soft, moist forest air on my face.  

Being an XL jacket, there was plenty of jacket to share, so naturally I invited my dear friend to partake in this scentual delight.  Without even a moment of visible judgement, she joined me and we dove our faces into the jacket here and there saying "mmm that's nice" and "oooh smell this part!" 

"I wonder whose it could be" I said and glanced around the bar for people that might smell like the Pacific Northwest.  My friend aptly pointed out that it was "only lovely because there's no man attached" and I considered that it might be best to keep its owner in my fantasy as a ghostly glimmer, a personification of home.

 As the night drew to a close, we mournfully departed with the jacket, and each other, and left the blanket-like garment on the bar stool, abandoned once again.

From time to time I look back on that night, and think fondly about that pine-scented jacket with soft blue lining; but I wonder if what I'm really cherishing is a faint resemblance of home, or perhaps the strange bond of smelling a strangers jacket with a good friend.

The Troll

      “They’ve ruined my childhood!” Harold exclaimed aloud after watching the first few minutes of the new “Ruler of the Finger-Cylinders” show.  He angrily munched on his orangey snack and stewed over this travesty.  Harold reached over to a big black trunk and removed a blank scroll, quill and ink. He hunched over the paper and clasped the quill in his bloated green fingers, and began to write in surprisingly elegant script.

    The new Ruler of the Finger-Cylinders show is an affront to true fanatics of J.K.K. Brolkiens' awe-inspiring works! Truly, this marks the death of literature as a whole! The heads of the muses are rolling down the bloodied hill of culture as millions of viewers rest their eyes upon this most hateful mockery of past beauty! No bigger tragedy has ever been committed, no greater sin has ever befallen these eyes.   I speak not merely for myself, but for the millions of devoted disciples of J.K.K. Brolkiens!

A clippity clop of little goat hooves sounded above him on the bridge he lounged beneath. “Ahh visitors,” he said licking his lips as he lay down his quill and bag of cheese-covered fingers. He rubbed his grumbling stomach and smiled through yellowed chicklets lining his necrotic gums.

Sore

Here's a little piece of fiction that I wrote as an outlet of self-mockery.

 

Sore

Jarnet's body ached as she stiffly thrust herself out of her car. She inched across the parking lot like a bowlegged duck-cowboy, and weakly reached for the door at the entrance of her workplace.

"Good morning Jarnet!" the clerk said cheerfully.

"Mmmhmm," Janet said, and sucked air through her teeth as one does when witnessing a trainwreck. The only trainwreck around was Jarnet and her papermache-like body. She was the anti-yogi, a sundried tire, a 200 year old wad of forgotten gum stuck under a Victorian desk.

"Is there something the matter?" The clerk asked, casually looking around for possible train wrecks. The clerk quickly glanced at herself, and began to question her choice of outfit for the day.

Oh god, it’s me she’s cringing at! I KNEW I shouldn't have a worn polka dot shirt, pants AND shoes! It's overkill! And why do I own so many clothes with polka dots, anyway? What am I, the quirky sidekick in a 1950’s movie?!

Jarnet moaned. The clerk looked up and took a deep breath as she smothered her feelings of self-hatred with a look of fabricated concern towards Jarnet.

"Are you alright?" the clerk asked.

"Ohhh," Jarnet exhaled wistfully as she leaned on the desk, "I'm just so sooore."

"Why's that?" The clerk inquired, not out of genuine curiosity, but sheer politeness.

"Well,” she said, pausing dramatically as she pretended to examine her nails, “I went to the gym yesterday"

Her eyes flashed up and searched the clerk’s face for an expression that said wow, the gym? I’m impressed. I’m such a lazy slob compared to you!

She didn’t find it.

“Well, I should head up now...although I’m so sore from all that exercise, that I don’t suppose using the stairs would be a good idea”

“Actually,” the clerk began to share, “I read that light exercise when you’re sore is supposed to be good for--”

“SO sore!” Jarnet interjected loudly as she turned a quick heel and headed toward the elevator.

As she got in, a co-worker joined her, complained about the weather, and asked how she was doing.

“Oh, you know, the usual.” she said as they got off at their floor. “I’m just SO sore.” she said, raising her voice to ensure the others would hear. She had dragged herself to the gym for the first time in two years, and worked out for an entire 30 minutes. She wanted the world to know.

“What from?” the co-worker asked.

“Why, exercise, of course!” she said smiling lopsidedly. “I went to the gym yesterday.”

“What’s this I hear,” a passerby commented “you went to the gym? That’s amazing! Wow, you must be so sore!”

“And HOW!” she said as she rubbed her glutes while making a pained smile. Finally, she thought, the recognition I’ve been craving. This person understands me, they know what it’s like to go to the gym and work out.

“So what’s your workout routine?” The passerby asked.

Routine? She wondered, what routine? All she had done was wander aimlessly from one machine to the next, doing half-hearted leg lifts and arm pumps. I hate this, I hate this so much she had thought repeatedly throughout her workout, like a broken record repeatedly skipping on the same line.

“A bit of this and a bit of that, you know, arms, legs, back, abs,” she replied. “WELL,” she said abruptly, “Those papers aren’t going to file themselves!” and she hurried off to her cubicle, completely forgetting about her aches earned the day before.