The Smell

I sat down in my UCC class, plugged in my computer and tried to concentrate on what my professor was blabbing about. But I just couldn't. I caught a whiff of a smell that did not belong in law school- the smell of Jacob sour-formula vomit. It was intense. It was attacking my sensory organs. And it was coming at me from all sides.

Prof: "If the proceeds in collateral are cash proceeds, does the security interest remain perfected? Cee, what do you think."

What do I think? I think he glanced in my direction at the very moment I happened to be sniffing the inside of my sweater trying to locate the source of The Smell.

"Um. Let me see. Um. Sorry, can you repeat the question?"

After he repeated the question, I fumbled my way through a semi-adequate answer. When I was satisfied that Prof. was done interrogating me, I focused once again on The Smell. It was definately coming from me, but where? Trying to not attract attention to myself, I casually brought my nose to each of my shoulders (the typical vomit location) and sniffed. Nope. Not there.

I pretended to rub my forehead with the back of my hand and slipped my nose along the sleeve, sniffing in all my sweater's polyester fabric. When I got to the crook of my elbow, I nearly gagged. My eyes started to tear up and I involuntarily started to fan the air beneath my nose with my hands. Mission Accomplished.

During the break between classes I tried to rinse the dried mystery vomit out of my sweater. But during the next class, the smell still permeated my consciousness. This was worse than that time I spilled soy sauce on my hair straightener (don't ask) and everytime I plugged it in, I was overwhelmed by the smell of burned hair and soy sauce.

The worst part of this vomit smell was that it was so gross I couldn't stop voluntarily smelling it. I HATED the smell, but it was also too intriguing to just ignore. Do you know what I mean? Like the awful smell of gasoline, the pain you get from rubbing a sore muscle, and the temptation to pick a hangnail- it's kind of addicting and you just can't stop! All day long I tried to stop myself from checking if The Smell was still there. I'm sure the people around me were wondering why I kept smelling myself.