Care For A Mint?

I've heard the saying "that's a breath of fresh air" quite a few times over the course of 27 years, 7 months and 10 days. You know what would really be a breath of fresh air? If people with absolutely abhorrent breath actually realized it and did something about it.

I went to lunch today...me and four guys that I work with. Actually, two of them I work with everyday and the other two were in town for a visit; no matter, really. Anyway, when I tell you that I was in the crossfire of three machine guns firing clouds of canned fecal aroma, I am not even coming close to making you understand the vile stench that emanated over the table. What was really just fucking awful about the whole thing was that there were three separate varieties of bad breath involved here.

The first, possessed by the gentleman directly to my left, was that of what I like to refer to as the medicinal variety. It's not overtly bad, and if I had to rate it on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the stinkiest), I'd give it a 6.5. It's tolerable on its own for a few minutes of close contact. But it smells like the person drank some rubbing alcohol and then sucked on a sweaty gym sock for a few minutes. So it has a sour kind of tinge to it, but not in an overpowering sense. In fact I had endured this man's wafted brand for a good while earlier in the day when we chatted about our shirts. I remember actually thinking to myself that this was a variety of bad breath that I am not entirely accustomed to and that it's really not so terrible if only for a minute or two.

The next guy had that breath that can only occur to someone who breathes with his mouth open at all times. It's a very dry smell but it's overpowering and pungent. it didn't exactly cancel out guy #1's breath...on the contrary, it left it much more potent. And for some reason, he was breathing really heavily and seemingly blowing it in my direction. That may sound ludicrous, but he was facing me in his end-of-table chair and i could feel his exhales on my face at times. The worst of it is, he was picking up the trail of the two other breath offerings on the way to my nose, thus creating that rare 3-in-1 halitosis hurricane that destroyed everything in its path. His breath gets an 8 on the scale, simply for portability. When you can so easily spread the virus, it makes it that much worse. And finally...

The third and final piece to this smelly puzzle is what's known as shit breath. It's what might prompt one of your co-workers to ask the person possessing this breath if he indeed ate a shit sandwich for breakfast. ("Whatcha have fuh breffis, son? A shit sandwich?") I mean, literally, there's got to be a literal piece of dog shit under your tongue for your breath to be that bad. And this guy at the table had such breath...such breath that could choke a fucking donkey in the words of the immortal Fat Bastard. I don't understand how someone whose breath is THIS bad can not realize the caustic nature of his/her breath. It would seem to me that someone would really have to forgo brushing his teeth and pretty much every form of oral hygiene known to man in order to produce such a foul smell. This breath gets a 10 on the scale because it smells like literal shit. And bad shit, like I drank all night and at taco bell at 4am, then got up and puked and shit at the same time.

The amalgamation of these three genres concocts a smell so foul...so nasty...so nose-crinkling, that you have no choice but to turn the other way and ignore each person. And be sure not to let these guys near your car because they'll strip the finish right off of it.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm gonna eat a mint.