It's An Ancient Whiff

It’s one of those T-shirts that sat for too long before drying.

The T-shirt smelt absolutely fine this morning.

But I walked to class today, and now, as the threads warm up from the increase in body heat, they begin to release their ancient whiff — the whiff of a t-shirt that sat wet for too long.

I never asked for this crap, but I’ve become like Larry D’Marzianonono, whose t-shirts continually whiffed of the whiff. No one blamed Larry, though. He was a young and enthusiastic inventor who came up with a safety device for a car that punched you in the balls whenever you fell asleep while driving.

And I know you’re thinking, what a rad idea, Larry. The trouble was that he set it too high, to begin with, and ended up with an elevated testicle and severe PTSD when the overzealous ‘sock in the nads’ caused him to hit a group of disabled tourists.

And since then, Larry always struggled with everyday tasks.

I, on the other hand, don’t have such a well-thought-out, fictional excuse.

And now I have to sit up front with my rather attractive economics teacher, who would never carry even the mildest whiff, aside from the mystical perfume she wears, which hums of unknown puddings consumed in luminous times past.

She gives me her usual Julia Robert’s horse smile, which, for some reason, is so attractive that it makes me wonder if I am attracted to horses. Her teeth glint so white under the fluorescent tubes that they radiate blue light into the back of my empty skull.

If I were twenty, I would undoubtedly get an erection.

But I’m not twenty. I’m forty-seven or forty-eight. Or something like that. So, I get a mental erection instead. And for now, that’ll do, pig.

I see a glimmer of disturbance suddenly appear in her horse smile. It’s just a glimmer. She’s become good at covering it up—because as a teacher, you have to be—but it’s definitely there. It’s the kind of eyebrow and micro-mouth movement that one might display when meeting a stranger and having them use mildly psychotic language.

And I know it’s not that bad. It’s just an ancient t-shirt whiff as old as humans themselves. As for me, I’m showered and clean.

I want to explain this, but I know it constitutes mildly psychotic language, and this micro ding in the horse smile may become a daily problem. Besides, what’s the point? It’s not that I’ll ever get to touch, see, or even smell her summer hole. I’m married and seven times her age.

So I don’t. I sit and show her my economics answers, and she corrects me. We both pretend we don’t smell the ancient whiff, which is murdering her celestial unknown pudding whiff like Jack The Malodourous Ripper.

I finally sit back at my place in the class. And we all move on, like the whiff of human greed, war, corporate influence in government, factory farming, writing teachers on Substack and Liverpool FC. Everything is impermanent. The whiff is there, but only for today. No whiff is forever.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new shirt, hopefully devoid of whiff.