Something Smells (Cigar Smoke 5-1-08)

OK, I’m getting tired of bad-mouthing ministers and schoolteachers. I thought I’d dip back into my well of boring drivel. It’s pretty much full most of the time.

I’m a creature of habit. I do the same damn things over and over. I go see hockey games in Canada every winter. I go to bush league baseball games every summer. I wear my same old ratty robe every dang night. I go outside and smoke my stogies after dinner, every damn day. And I wear the same darn cologne. (I’m out of D words. Doggone it.)

I have only used two brands of cologne in my entire life. Oh, sure, once I rebelliously splashed on some Brut in college and two squirrels jumped my nuts. But that’s another story. Of course, I started out using Old Spice. I’m not a commie. Every guy I knew used Old Spice. Since I was about 15, I just sprayed on some Old Spice and bounded out into the world like that happy-ass captain in the TV commercials. I think he got all the women. That pirate outfit is a damn babe magnet.

I used Old Spice for about 20 years and then for some forgotten reason I switched over to Chaps. I don’t know why. I think I just liked the name. Chaps — it fit perfectly for a lanky cowpoke such as myself. And you know what? Women liked it. I couldn’t believe it. I would walk into my office and some woman person would say, “You sure smell good.” And I’d turn around and there was no one else there. And I’d say, “You want to smell it a little closer after work?” And she’d say, “Not really, I’m going to get some for my boyfriend.” (By the way, it’s kind of funny, but most of the women I know all have the same first name: Plaintiff.)

But I swear women would always comment on my Chaps. Sometimes I’d be standing in line at the bank, and sure as Jimmy Carter is loopy, some woman would comment on my sweet smelling Chaps-doused face. Everywhere I went I got some nice feedback. Even when I went to my favorite donut place, the Chinese woman behind the counter would say, “You smell berry wood.” I think that was a compliment. But I could be terwibbly wong.

I’m sorry. I kid the Chinese. This nice donut woman was nothing like those Tibet-enslaving commie bastards in her home country.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was running low on my supply of Chaps, so I went on the Internet to order a few bottles at half the cost of California cologne and save the taxes and feel defiant and try to stick it to Rob Reiner for screwing me on the cigar taxes, and I get on this fragrance Web site and damned if all the women on there aren’t saying great things about Chaps. They just love Chaps. I am not kidding. Even out-of-state women love Chaps.

And then I read a message in a forum post. Some woman from Maryland just casually let it slip, and it kind of jolted me. She said something like, yes, she loved Chaps, and yes, it turned her on when her husband wore it, and yes, it made her want to get out of her skivvies, and yada yada, and then she said, “Of course, it’s not Paul Sebastian.”

It’s not Paul who? Paul Sebastian? Who in hell’s bells is Paul Sebastian? Probably some pissy Frenchman with an eye-patch and a beret. So what did I do? I ordered three bottles of Chaps and one disgustingly expensive bottle of Paul Sebastian. I thought, “Hey Chaps face, you’ve been wearing Chaps for 32 years. Maybe it’s time to switch to a little Sebastian action. Maybe if it made Marge rip your clothes off, you’d remember what to do when you’re naked.”

So it came in the mail the other day and I generously splashed some on my cheeks and I walked out of the bathroom and the first one to notice me was my personal man’s best friend, Hadley. He knows that whenever I put on my Chaps, he’s probably going for a walk. He gets excited every day at the first smell of Chaps.

Well, I threw that fur ball for a doggy loop, baby. He took one whiff of that Sebastian shit and he cocked his long Airedale head, and he looked at me out of the corner of his canine-acal eye, and he did something I didn’t think dogs could do. He coughed.

I probably should have taken that as a bad sign, but I live on the what? The edge. That’s what. Danger is my co-pilot. So I went out to the kitchen and Marge was sitting at the table reading the paper, and I walked up to her and put my Sebastian-splashed face right up next to hers, raised my eyebrows twice, and said, “You notice anything different?” And she said, “I don’t know, I can’t concentrate. There’s this bad smell.”

That was cold. I paid $59 for this?! Fifty-nine bucks to be rejected and humiliated. What a sucker. What a Sebastian suck-face sucker I was. I was stunned. So I decided to get another opinion, and I went over to Starbucks and I was standing in line, and the woman next to me coughed very much like Hadley had coughed, and the guy next to her was looking at me like I was a French dude from Paree. And I said, “I used to be a pirate and a cowboy.” He didn’t say jack. He just looked through me. And reversed sniffed a couple of times. He was probably from UCLA.

And when I got to the front of the line, I was hoping for some kind of donut-lady positive response to my new cologne. And I got my order, and well, I just waited there a second. I didn’t move. And the girl behind the counter said, “Is something wrong?”

And I kind of stumbled a bit, and finally said, “Uh, I was just wondering if you, uh, smelled something?” I looked at her expectantly for some Chaps-like love.

She said, “Oh, I’m sorry sir. The restroom backed up. We’re having someone come out soon.”

I think you and I both know who that will be. Paul Sebastian.

Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.