The Cold

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Alice woke up with a cough. “No big deal,” she thought, shrugging. After all, she’d gotten colds before. It wasn’t until she gave a loud *sniff* that she realized it wasn’t just a cough, it was full-scale sickness. She would have to do paperwork all day. She groaned – she preferred working in the lab. Still, that was life when you use your sniffer.

Alice was a perfumer, one of the best. She spent years marketing perfumes and colognes, memorizing different scents, timing how long they lasted. Her nose was her primary tool. She didn’t know how to do anything else but sniff and analyze.

For years she’d been searching for the one great fragrance, the scent that she could cash in on and make millions with. She wanted to leave her mark in cosmetic shops everywhere.

And then, almost by accident, she found the way. While reading some random, on-line article, she learned that a high percentage of women are turned on by the smell of a sweaty man. A man walks in after a basketball game, and boom! Instant turn-on. Alice was amused, but that was it.

Then, at lunch that day, she and her female co-workers were complaining about Niagara, the wonder-drug. “Men get all the attention,” Sasha complained. “No one cares about marketing a turn-on for women.” The group agreed.

Alice remembered the article, and suddenly an idea hit her. She stood up abruptly and rushed back to her office, not even bothering to say goodbye. She started her research immediately and found other studies that correlated the first – a hot sweaty body was just the thing a woman needed. But in the modern world, with office cubicles and air conditioners, with couch potatoes and showers twice a day, women just weren’t getting what they needed – stinky, sweaty men.

Today she was working on getting just the right stench. She had men come in every day for trials. They usually set them up for a good game of basketball, then sniffed them on the way out and compared them with production. Of course, every sweat was different, but what she needed was the basic components. She would market it as a cologne for men, and boom! Instant gratification for their wives and girlfriends. What woman would resist such a lure?

Despite Rhonda’s suggestion, their ad would definitely NOT be “make your husband smell like sweat.” They were still working on a slogan.

And now, a cold! Breathe, she told herself. This too will pass.

But it didn’t. It dragged on for a week, and Alice felt herself getting edged out. Even though it was her project, if she didn’t help with the actual sniffing, she wouldn’t get credit, notice, or fame. She would get nothing.

She stopped at the pharmacy that night. “I need it all!” she demanded. “Every cold medicine you can think of!”

That night, she took all 37 brands, every one of them, at the same time. Luckily her sister came by, and when she saw Alice laying on the floor, comatose, she called the hospital, where her stomach was pumped and her doctor yelled. But Alice had been desperate.

It wasn’t until she left the hospital that she realized – her cold was gone! She ran to work early the next morning, panting and heaving, but ready to smell the sweat.

Rhonda handed her the tenth trial batch. “This is the best we’ve come up with,” she said to Alice. “Let us know how close we are.”

Alice sniffed the first one. Nothing. She tried again, but still could smell no scent. Desperate, she cast her eyes about but could find nothing to smell. Then she realized her underarms were damp. Quickly, she raised her arm and took a good long whiff. Nothing!

“Um, Alice, are you okay?” Rhonda asked. “You know we’re trying to match how a sweaty man smells, right?”

“I’m fine,” Alice snapped. Rhonda was next in line to take over the project, should Alice fall through. If anyone found out her nose was, quite literally, broken!

In came the sweaty guys, talking and laughing. They raised their arms high over their heads, and Alice and Rhonda stepped forward and sniffed. They went down the line, sniffing, then comparing with the sample. The men left.

“What did you think?” Rhonda asked.

“What did you think?” Alice countered.

Rhonda shook her head sadly. “We’re close, but we are just missing that key ingredient. I can’t seem to figure out what it is. Can you?”

“Umm, no.” Alice bit her lip. “But I’ll keep working on it.”

She ran to the doctor that afternoon during lunch. “I can’t smell!” she burst out. “I can’t smell sweaty, stinky, dripping men!”

The doctor examined her, then shook his head. “Apparently, all that medication really messed you up. No one knew taking that much would knock out your sense of smell. Probably because it usually kills you.” He paused. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider counseling?”

“I’m not suicidal, doc,” Alice snapped. “And I need my nose back in working order.”

The doctor shook his head. “Well, there’s nothing we can do. Maybe it will come back on its own.”

Days passed, then weeks. Every day, Alice hoped against hope as she pressed her face to sweaty, hairy armpits. Every day, no scent, and she would go home wanting to scream.

Then their big break came, and it came to Rhonda. Rhonda! In mid-sniff, she looked up, banging her head against the subjects arm. “I know what we need!” she burst out. She ran back to the lab and added more civet.

“Civet?” Alice asked.

“Yeah, civet, you know from the civet cat? From the perineal glands?”

Alice shuddered. “I know what it is. It comes from the cat’s, um, nether region, and keeps the perfume on longer. It’s the reason I don’t wear perfume.”

“Well, it has that special, sharp, body odor scent we need.” Rhonda added a few drops to their current batch.

“Smell this!” She held it up to Alice’s nose.

“Hmmm,” Alice said thoughtfully. “You might be right. Let’s ask someone else.”

They pulled all the testers in, and the group began to get excited. Really excited. In fact, Rhonda started flirting with Alan.

Soon the perfume was marketed. It was something of a struggle to convince women to help their men smell like sweat, but when a man tried it one day, the women called their friends and recommended it the next morning. It was a hit.

Alice flipped on the television one night, and there was Rhonda, on the news.

“Where did you come up with this idea?” the newscaster asked.

“Well, it was sort of a group effort,” Rhonda said mildly. Alice snorted as the interview went on. Rhonda was wearing her new designer clothes – she’d gone on a shopping spree immediately after her promotion to vice-president. If only Alice had been able to smell something when she stuck her face under all those men’s arms! She knew she would have been in Rhonda’s place now.

“What would you change about your research?” the newslady asked.

“Well,” said Rhonda thoughtfully, “Most of our sniffers are women. Next time, I think I’d make them all men.”

“Why’s that?” asked the newscaster, startled.

“Well, you see, all these women were standing around sniffing sweaty men, and you KNOW what that scent does. We had so many long lunch breaks while women ran over to their husband or boyfriend’s office, and a few didn’t come back to work!”