[pjalne]

A little off-topic but still in the right neighborhood:

I worked in an electronics store a couple of years ago, and we sold pre-paid credit for cell phones. Not sure what those cards are called in English. A lot of customers have trouble registering their credit (old people mostly), and we of course helped them do it.

Then there was this lady. I swear to god, we could all smell her the minute she started walking up the stairs. And hear her. She was blowing like a whale from the strain as she was climbing the stairs, pumping out week-old air from the bottom of her nicotine-swimming lungs. She reeked of old tobacco, fresh tobacco, stuck-in-every-skin-cell-of-the-entire-body tobacco and shit tobacco as well as sweat and dog shit.

She had a big dog. She was a big ugly lady. The kind that has big dogs. Her much too long nails were brown from the nicotine that had stuck on the outside as well as what I imagine was nicotine that had seeped into every nail cell from the inside. You can imagine the teeth. As for the rest, imagine Quasimodo only woman and incapable of ringing any bells without collapsing into a wheezing ball of skunk shit.

Whenever my coworkers and I sensed her, we would abandon each other and run hide in the toilet or elevator, leaving one poor soul to help her. Sometimes it was me.

Her phone was covered with a film of all the unpleasantness mentioned above as well as shit from her apartment. I would pick up the phone with three fingers, dial carefully while holding it away from my ear, and get it over with. After she'd left, I'd run and wash my hands. The smell would still stay there for hours.

Shit, ran a little long there. Well, anyone else experienced anything similar?