Monday, April 28, 2008

Check Your Breath


One day last week I had to spend several hours in the company of a guy with serious bad breath. Serious. He is a really sweet guy, but damn, the breath is a real issue. When he was talking my hand would instinctively go towards my nose, in an effort to blockade the sharpness of his breath. And once I realized where my hand was, I kept trying to pass it off like I was dealing with a twitchy nose. For some reason I didn’t want him to know his breath was causing this reaction, I didn’t want to embarrass him. Yet I needed him to know so he could get on top of the situation. Talk about rock and a hard place.

It was a tough situation. I don’t know him really well, so I didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up, but I couldn’t keep looking for reasons to leave his company while he was mid chat. That and I was angling my face in such a way that I was not down wind from his mouth while he was talking, which meant I was not making eye contact, so now I’m starting to look a little loopy, twitchy, rude or ADD. One of the other girls eventually mentioned it to me, “Oh my god, did you notice, I don’t know, lets call him “Mouthwash”, Mouthwash has nasty breath?”
Wow, the relief. Someone had finally said, out loud, what most of the place was probably thinking. I’m not kidding but it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I was now sharing the stress with someone else. I asked the girl if she had any mints that we could offer Mouthwash. But she hadn’t. Then I remembered I had a pack of gum in my purse. Hurrrrraaaaaayyy. We waited for him to come back and once he did I was straight in with the offer of a lovely stick of the bluest, mintiest gum. I tried to sound very casual when I offered it to him, but I’m sure if he had to look close enough, my eyes and face would have given away the desperate, pleading dialogue that was going on in my head. “Please, please say “yes”. Really, you need to. Take the gum. Take the gum. Will you for the love of god, please take the gum?? Yes, nice one". He took the gum.

My normal, civilized mannerisms returned and we all interacted happily. About an hour later my friend came over to me and announced, “I think he spit the gum out”. Oh no, “Are you serious? His breath is stinky again?” I was crushed. “Fraid so”. Damn it. And I had no gum left to offer. We just had to endure as best we could.

So this Monday, if we’ve learned anything, it’s to please be breath aware. Always be as minty fresh as you can. If you are the type to suffer from sharpness of breath, then never ever leave home without your gum, mints or Listerine Strips.

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