3 Things: Thing 2

AJ Teaters

3 Things: Thing 2

My last post introduced a series that I was going to write on called "3 Things" each thing I was going to talk about caught my attention some way or another in the past few weeks. The first was the crazy resemblance of Vortex Beer Bottles and Twisted Pleasure Condoms. Why a marketing department would want an inherently manly product to have such a strong phallic persona is still beyond my comprehension. The second thing that has recently peeked my interest is what I refer to as "The Sickly Sweetness".

I am a 6th grade teacher, so I am around all kinds of stink for at least 8 hours a day on a 5 day a week basis. Also, let's not forget that I am a dad of 3 (an almost 4 year-old, an almost 3 year-old and an 8 month old) so I am pretty much living in some type of situational stink for 12-14 hours everyday. It's no wonder I keep my desk surrounded by enough air fresheners to supply a NY cabbie for a year. Semantics aside, all I know is that those little kids don't smell anywhere as bad as one would think, but WHY?!

I was walking down the hallway that houses our school bathrooms when a grip (that's somewhere between 15-20, I can never keep track of them long enough to get an accurate head count) kindergarteners were standing, as patiently as they could, waiting to use the bathroom. I think I have to preface this with the fact that these lil' biscuits just came in from recess; running around in the 100+ degree heat, playing tether-ball, tag, and 4-square. They were drenched, head-to-toe, one of those "did they just run through the sprinklers" looks. At this point I wished that I had a bubble to crawl into, one of those inflatable "nothing-in/nothing-out" type of deals. They were so close, their little sweaty hands reaching out to me, their egocentric heads shaking their sweat drenched hair spraying beads of perspiration all over EVERYTHING! But I noticed something... They didn't stink! Well they did, but not in the way I thought.


Little kid B.O. was "Sickly Sweet" it was like someone had shoved candy under their armpits. I can't explain the phenomenon, it just is. It's like a mystery of nature, something that only Dan Brown could write about and Robert Langdon could solve. I don't know why I never noticed it before, I have 2 toddler boys that do nothing but find ways to make themselves sweaty. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I walk past sweaty little kids and want to lick them or top my ice-cream sundae with them (This ain't Grimm's Fairy Tales), but I think it does have to be noted that kids smell like they came straight out of Willy Wonka's factory when they get sweaty. Like some insane Oompa Loompa filled their sweat glands with candy, come on Willy Wonka had crazier ideas...

It may just be me but it begs the question, "What do you think little kid B.O. smells like?"