The Poison, The Stench, The Rancid Smell--Did I do that?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been the victim to bad perfume blues (I don’t care if there’s no one around to see you raise your hand!  Just do it!)?  Raise your hand if you were poisoned by your friend’s new fragrance?  Raise your hand if you have caught that whiff, that terrible whiff of an older lady who just brushed past you with that acrid perfume?  I was the friend.  I was the older lady.  I was the odor, and even though others have felt bad for me because of my diabetes (explained later) I couldn't shed tears over this one, because THIS was all my FAULT.

I was getting bored of the perfume bottles I owned so I waltzed into my mother’s bathroom and studied her perfume bottles.  This one looks interesting.  No, wait I like this one.  Mmmhmm, this is the one.  I pondered my options, trying to decide what fragrance I was going to try that day.  I did a random draw and ended up with a unique bottle that was set to haunt me the rest of my day.  I sniffed the top and figured it smelled okay.  This one will do, I thought.  That was my mistake.  I thought it smelled okay, I thought it would just simply do.  I didn’t check with my mom first to see if this was one of her better perfumes.  There, right there, was the place where I screwed up.  And boy, did I pay for it.

I picked up the bottle, I opened the cap, and I sprayed.  I sprayed that poison onto my wrists.  I sprayed that potent fluid onto my neck.  I sprayed that perfume scent into my hair.  And that was when I smelled it.  I smelled just how bad the perfume I just dowsed myself with was.  Great.  Now I have to deal with this smell all freaking day.  How could I be so dumb?

As I went downstairs to tell my mom and dad I was ready to head to Costco with them, like we planned, I was already disgusting myself.  When my parents smelled my rancid odor, they were just as disgusted as I was.  The difference?  I had to live with it all day.  This smell was never going to leave me.  All day, all the time, everywhere.

So as I entered my car, I could already tell that the trip to Costco was going to be a long one, right from the minute all of our doors closed and there was nothing in the air except for that pungent scent.  I started to gag as we left our garage and headed to the store.  I seriously felt that one more whiff and I was going to throw up.  At that moment, I felt bad for all the friends and older ladies and any woman who ever had bad perfume.  Before, all I ever thought about was how the bad perfume smelled to me.  I never thought about how the perfume might have smelled to them.  They were just trapped, unable to run away from the worst, just like I was.  Why did the world grant young women this curse?  Why, world, why? 

“Well, I don’t know, Erin.  Why would you question me like that?” 

Because all over the world, you ruin girls’ days! 

“It’s not my fau-…” 

Yes it is!  Don’t you even start with me about that!  We’ve talked about this before!

So yeah, the car ride pretty much “stunk” and the Costco run wasn’t much better.  I felt bad for the people around me.  I felt bad for the poor food resting in the freezers that couldn’t move, couldn’t sprint away from my stench.  I felt bad for, most of all, me, who just wanted to smell different for a change, you know?  (sniffle, sniffle)  Poor, poor me.  But then, something happened.  Something big, something that would save me from me, something that would save my day.  It was rumbling inside of me, a hurricane forming.  The world was finally going to rescue me…

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(momentum building, momentum building)

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(wait for it!)

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And then I sneezed, and the moment passed.

I was tricked, I was trapped, I was caught by my leg with a snare.  I almost believed, for just one second, that my day would turn around.  Well it didn’t, and I stunk up the entire store with my scent.

I wanted to feel bad for myself, I really did.  However, I knew it was my fault.  I’ve never been one to feel bad for myself, even when others thought they should. 

One day, I was hanging with my friends during lunch, having a good time, laughing at someone’s joke.  Just a few days previous, a girl I just met was beginning to hang out with us.  I really liked her, and had absolutely no problem with her new arrival, until she said this:

“My mom feels really bad for you because, you know, of your diabetes.”

Was that supposed to make me feel better about myself and my diabetes?  And if so, how?  (That really sounded like one of those essay questions you would see, huh?  What can I say?  I’m just dying to go back to school…J)   What was I expected to say to that?  Thanks?  For what?  I don’t need people’s sympathy.  I don’t need them to worry about what I can and can’t eat (I can eat anything people!).  I don’t need them to do anything to help me with my type 1.  The only thing I need from them is to just be my friend, which my close amigos have done!  Whatever, it doesn’t matter about what she said.  As my family and I say, her heart was in a good place.  She wasn’t trying to make me annoyed, or angry, or uncomfortable (even though she did, duh!).  She was just trying to feel good about herself, feel like she helped me in some way.  But she can’t and she should’ve just said nothing on the subject other than a question about the disease and how it affects me.  I would’ve been happy to educate her.  She could’ve learned something new that day!  But she didn’t.  Oh well. 

I just have one question, though:

Why was her mom the one who felt bad for me and not her?  Is that strange, or is that strange?  I’m going to go with strange. J