OLD GEEZER SMELLS

Excuse me, kid, uncle needs to get by. I wish to exit the building. I have paid for my milk tea and egg tart (奶茶同蛋撻 'naai chaa tong daan taat'), I'm holding my shopping bags and have a pipe clenched between my teeth, and as soon as I have successfully dealt with this moving obstruction (you) and am out the door, I shall light up, and be young and vibrant again. She's an adorable little tyke, but very small, and not quite adept at moving out of the way. What with being flabbergasted and agape-mouthed over the white devil uncle addressing her in Cantonese. Which I can understand. If I were her age I too would no doubt so be if anyone spoke to me in Cantonese. Seeing as back then I was only familiar with Dutch and English, and had not yet fully learned where the boundary between the two lay.


But in any case 白鬼叔叔 ('paak kwai suk suk) desires to smoke and ambulate gracefully toward a spot where he can catch the bus, which will be a few blocks further downhill, as by the time it gets to Chinatown it is filled with people who although conveniently crumple-zone material, quite crash-bag like, are hard to squeeze in among. That will take about five or six blocks, and I will have finished the pipe by then.

For the past two or three weeks I've experimented with a small pinch of something quite degenerate added to the tobacco in my pouch. It's too evil to be smoked straight.
But in a minute quantity it softens the smoke without radiating perversion.

Mmm, this is good. A faint hint of body spray.
Not urinal cake; that's Lakeland.

Several weeks ago I clicked on an article discussing old person smell. After which I got advertisements on my feed for ancient geezer soaps made with persimmon, as apparently that disolves the skin grease which causes fusty dinosaur reek, and, it was claimed, regular soap doesn't. Which has to be horse-pucky. Regular soap is, in fact, too good at that. Every old person I know complains of dry skin, and I must rub a thin layer of Aveeno lotion on my calves and feet after the bath so they don't end up itchy throughout the day.


Some old gentlemen from the Deep South smell like lilac aftershave at all times. With slight hints of vanilla, musk, and fresh garden herbs, sometimes traces of rose oil and mint.

William Faulkner whiffed a bit of Latakia, Turkish leaf, and flue-cured tobacco.
Terpeneols, incense-like resins, and carotenoids. Very civilized.



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