Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
User Journal

Journal bethanie's Journal: Survey for a Monday Morning 30

Journal by bethanie
Got a question for ya:

How completely evil does it rate to take the skanky, stinky, sweat-soaked, musk-ridden, post-yardwork tighty-whities that Hubby had left on the bathroom floor OFF from around the baby's neck (where she had so proudly hung them) and, dangling them from one finger, swing them in front of Hubby's face while he's watching the ball game so he can catch a really thorough sniff, asking, "You think these are dirty?" as I carry them through the house to the laundry room?

Does it make it more or less evil that I [ill-advisedly] took a whiff of them first and knew how truly and utterly noxious they were?

As a corollary, what is the most offensive odor you've experienced being emitted from the human body? (Dead OR alive -- we'll just throw it wide open.)

Adjunctly -- which smells are worse: organic or inorganic?

GO.
This discussion was created by bethanie (675210) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Survey for a Monday Morning More

Survey for a Monday Morning

Comments Filter:
  • An old girlfriend "lost" a tampon. Seriously. That put me off "chowin' down" for ages.
  • This certainly is not a good topic for an hour before lunch time.

    As far as an answer, I would have to say the worst smell was not necesarilly off the human body, but more from the room he occupied. And that would be one of my former roommates. I believe that he was storing a dead body in his bedroom for most of the year. As a precaution I would spray frebreeze into his room whenever he was out of the room.

  • OK... (Score:2)

    by ellem ( 147712 )
    1) Your evil is 6
    2) Your WTF is 4
    3) Worst smell ever was a Marshall burning it's power converter while I was playing Mountain Song at CBGBs.
    4) Organic as a general rule expect for #3.
    • In honor of this post (and many more before it), I am changing my sig.
      I just laughed out a pb&j bit onto my keyboard, ya bastard. :P
  • I have no sense of smell, you insensitive clod!

    :)

    OK so that's not completely true, however I do have a very weak sense of smell, so for me to be able to smell something it has to be quite pungent.

    Worst thing I've ever smelled? Broken, rotting drain line. Ghastly.

    • I have no sense of smell, you insensitive clod!

      I haven't had a sense of smell for going on 11 years now. And not just weak, none.

      The worst remembered odor had to be severely spoiled potatoes.
      • Oh, I forgot about that. Severely spoiled potatoes actually triggered my gag reflex.

        There was a bad aroma coming from the kitchen. We thought it was the trash, so we emptied it and Lysoled it (well, actually "Odor Destroyed" it), but the smell still persisted. We poked around the counter a bit, where, under some buns and other bread we found:

        Liquid Potatoes

        Now, Roomie Spex is a bit of a wuss, so when she started clutching her mouth saying "I'm going to throw up" I reached over with a fresh garbage bag to
        • Thing is, liquified, putrefied potatoes smell to me *exactly* like cat piss.

          Hubby had a cat when we first got together, and once I thought she had pissed in the pantry. I looked and looked for something like a week, until I couldn't stand it anymore.

          Turned out to be a bag of rotten sweet potatoes down in the bottom. Yik.

          But THAT is what cats smell like to me. Any wonder I'm not too fond?

          ....Bethanie....
          • I have still, to this day, never smelled cat urine. I guess I should consider myself fortunate that the worst LucyCat does when she's mad at us is whine, but everybody always talks about the awful scent of cat pee, which makes me kind of want to know what it actually smells like...
            • which makes me kind of want to know what it actually smells like...

              Ammonia. Unfortunately I've gotten a whiff of it when changing the great black-and-white huntress's litter box.

  • It has to be dead skin residue when you can't wash an area for a while (like when you have a cast on an arm or leg). That stench is enough to make me violently ill.

    Running a close second - the breath of someone with rotting teeth. I used to work with a girl who had a serious problem with her teeth and jaw, and I could always tell when she had been talking in the room because there was an odor that was unmistakable. It would give me BAD headaches.

    • The skin thing, to me, qualifies as more of a "funk." For some reason, that doesn't bother me very much.

      The bad breath/poor dental hygiene/rotten tooth thing is a real clencher, though. Really disgusting. I feel sorry for the folks, but DAMN if that isn't some nasty smelling shit.

      ....Bethanie....
    • She couldn't, or wouldn't, bring large bottles of listerine with her for hourly usage?
        • She couldn't, or wouldn't, bring large bottles of listerine with her for hourly usage?

        I'm not sure she even realized how bad it was. It was really sad - she was a nice girl and she was always very pleasant, but her breath would have gagged a horse. I would have to avoid going in the room for a while if she had been in there, it was so bad it would give me a headache. In her defense, she had some kind of chronic problem with her jaw, but I never quite understood what it was or why it made her breath so

  • I vote anaerobic bacteria, from an infection, as the worst smell ever. My personal best, anyway. You know it has to be bad when it makes the nurses leave the room... before the procedure starts! Out in the hall, I heard one of the nurses say to another, "whatever you do, *don't* go in there!" Then they closed the door, and it was just me, the doc, a little knife, and, after a moment... the smell of death. Coming from *me*. That was *not* a fun trip to the ER! But it was pretty cool that I managed to freak
  • Cleaning out an apartment. Went it and found, among other things, that the kitchen had been used as a kennel for three dogs for upwards of a year... with no cleaning. Some of the feces had turned gray, it was so old.

    Anyway, we were removing months-old trash from the back room, and there was a 50-pound dog-food bag stuffed with trash. As my friend picked it up, we saw that the bottom was moist, and a smell that I cannot accurately describe watfed out at us. We fled the premises, retching.

    For your imagination
    • I just realized this was outside the polled question, but nearly fits inside the last poll option, as a clearly organic smell.

      I think we are predisposed to react to organic smells more violently, as the smell or rot or death meant danger. Chemical smells do also, but rarely in the inherent way that organic smells spark response.

  • heh (Score:2)

    by tuxette ( 731067 ) *
    Not too long ago, boyfriend of tuxette came home from a business trip stinking like a wolf that had just rolled itself in something really nasty...

    He was on the same flight as the King and Queen of Norway. I'm sure they were very impressed...

    Then again, I don't smell so great after a hard workout...

    • Re:heh (Score:1)

      by grub ( 11606 )

      stinking like a wolf that had just rolled itself in something really nasty...

      Yesterday our dog pulled a rotting mouse from the bucket where I dump the contents of the swimming pool's skimmer basket and was rolling on it. Bath time. Dogs are disgusting slobs.
      (yeah I should empty the bucket more often)
  • As for *which* organic smell is the worst?

    Some of the worst I've smelled has been various peoples' breath. Rotting animals in the hot sun is always a good one. Forgetting to empty the greenish water a few days after steaming broccoli is great; first time I made that mistake I came home and started looking for dead rats under furniture. Backed up sewage lines are always a joyous occasion. But the absolute worst? Hmm. Probably the time my girlfriend and I went to Hawai'i; we turned off all the circuit breaker
  • Worst: When me and a co-worker found the remains of the Christmas dinner in a broken fridge in the server room[1].

    In May.

    First, the salmon, ham and whatnots (we could not identify any of the plates) had been in the working fridge for months, slowly decomposing. Then, the fridge had broken down, possibly from the smell. When it started leaking stuff out on the floor a hot spring evening, we found it. We were on the tech support night shift, so we took turns cleaning up and answering the phone. We had to

  • The smell of decomposing flesh. I mean really rotten, bloated decomposing flesh...and maybe it's just a mental thing, but until you've smelled a human body.....that's way off the scales.

    My buddy the Fire Chief at the airport I work in says that burned human flesh has a vomit inducing power all its own.

    And cut your husband a break...it's just dirty underwear. Like your crotch doesn't stink after yardwork too? Comeon. Its not like our balls have a unique odor. Now, our asses....ok, that I'll give you. :P
    • OK, yeah. The problem isn't with the actual smell of the undies, nor the fact that they were soaked with sweat. I've had my share of wet panties, too -- but we won't get into that...

      It was the fact that he left them on the FLOOR and my BABY walked in with them hanging around HER NECK.

      *Major* EEEEEEWWWWW! factor, man.

      He deserved a sniff. That's all I'm sayin'.

      ....Bethanie....

    • The smell of decomposing flesh. I mean really rotten, bloated decomposing flesh...and maybe it's just a mental thing, but until you've smelled a human body.....that's way off the scales.

      Yep, necrotizing fasciitis (the good ole "flesh-eating disease") - mixed w. various body wastes. (Fortunately, you get used to your own smell after a while . . .)

      For the record - its way worse than a "forgotten tampon," or dirty underwear, or dead skunk.

  • Had a neighbor who nobody had seen for a few days.

    They called the fire department. We broke down his door when he didn't answer and found him.

    Estimates placed his death at 6 days previous.

    It smelled real bad.

    Like scrub your brain bad. I almost puked.*

    He was an older man, and had had a heart attack apparently. The TV was still on. Sitting in his lazy boy. Blood pooled in his legs and stuff, and he was starting to swell. Yuck. Thankfully, it wasn't too hot.

    *that's saying a lot. I don't puke, unless I'
  • I think the most penetrating odor has to be skunk. Maybe not the nastiest, but the duration and penetration more than make up for it.

    The worst I have personally encountered was cleaning out an appartment. The refridgerator was unplugged. When I opened the freezer, ugh. Everything had liquified and poured out all over me. I hurled and ran for air. Wound up throwing out those clothes and sneakers. Came back later with a shopvac, respirator, and lots of Pinesol.
  • I worked at a place that (at the time) gave out turkeys at Christmas. We're talking whole birds, about 20 lbs each.

    The entire department that ran (Ethernet) cables was very busy at that point in time, so it was decided to put their birds in the storage shed outside (behind their office). Being in central(ish) New Hampshire, this seemed like a good idea, since the temperature at that time of the year could hardly be confused with "warm".

    Well, the birds were completely forgotten, until around May. The smel

  • As a kid, I grew up on a farm.. I think I've smelled, seen, and probably stepped in some of the worst. You get a little of everything. Dead decomposing critters, feces, blood, and a whole variety of chemical odors.

    As a kid, I had a motorcycle. I'd ride it everywhere. Once day, I was riding down this long backroad, that leads pretty much nowhere, and I smelled something. I kept driving, and for the next mile, the smell got stronger. Then I found the source of our new li
  • Hands down the worst was during my first year of medical school in anatomy lab. One of the cadavers had not been thoroughly enbalmed. So, when we opened the outer plastic coverings for the first time, the smell levelled everyone in its wake, including the man whose profession is to care for the cadavers. We had nicknamed him "Renfield."

Slashdot Top Deals

No user-servicable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel.

Close