Stinky fingers of a single hand

It's after 10 in the evening and the bus has only seven or so riders. The pungent smell of an unwashed body extends throughout the bus.

As inhabitants of the 21st century "developed" world, we are made neurotic about smell. We expect our environments to be free of stink. The stink of others disturbs us most. Over the course of the past 100 years technology has worked to eliminate body smell. Hair removal and aluminum chlorohydrate have created sweatless cyborgs. Most importantly, we glory in the ability to shower at least twice a day. When we don't think anyone is looking, we occasionally take a sniff at our own armpits because we can't even stand our own stink.

Of course, there is a big difference between the smell of fresh sweat from a recently exercising body--a smell which can be appealing and sensual--and the smell of a body that has not bathed for a month. And this body most likely has spent that month carrying a person's entire possessions from one neighborhood to the next.

When traveling by plane you do not expect someone's odor will make you reach for that little blue bag in the seat pocket. Common courtesy, otherwise known as modern discipline, means we brush our teeth and bathe before flying, and we expect our neighbor to do the same. On the bus, one can expect the kid in front of you to be eating sour cream potato chips for breakfast and the woman next to you to have splashed herself with perfume from the 99 cent store.

Unlike filth, which I can avoid by focusing on the pages of a book or moving to another part of the bus, the only way to avoid smell is to plug my nose. And even if I was willing to call attention to myself in this way, I would still feel sick from the feeling I was breathing parasites . It requires intense meditation skills to transform the stench of a cow barn to the fragrance of a pine forest. I'm not there yet.

A man with a very dirty long beard sits across from me. He is sprawled out, perhaps falling asleep, but his eyes are open. The woman next to him leans over and takes a whiff. Is he the source of the smell? I can't tell from her face. It is often hard to tell the source, and she doesn't change her seat. The man doesn't seem to notice, or he doesn't care. We're all family. My unwiped ass is your unwiped ass.