Fumes.

I am not a morning person.
By that, I mean that I do not do mornings well.
If mornings could just be postponed to like... mid-afternoon, or even just moved to the evening, I’d be totally on track.
At night I am never tired. But mornings? Always.
Today was no exception. By the time I actually got out of bed I was in a rush (again). I had a shower while coffee was brewing, and then ran out the door. [Well, after putting clothes on.] But I was in such a hurry that I did not even spritz myself with my special cologne.
I was totally cologneless.
But the hallway to the elevator was positively swimming in cologne. My neighbor must have left his place just before I did. He really packs on the cologne, the guy. It’s nice stuff, really. So I waited for the elevator, forcibly breathing him in.
When I got in the elevator (I am on the top floor) the only change in the wafting scent was that here it was more concentrated. WOW! It was powerful.
This was obviously the same elevator (we have two) that my cologne-sporting neighbor had just used.
I sipped my coffee.
The elevator stopped at about the tenth floor.
In walked a woman. I smiled at her, and her at me.
She is very attractive. Oriental. I see her all the time because her car is parked only a few stalls over from mine, in the underground parking garage.
I’m not one for small talk, really. We both know that the weather is horrid today. So I just stare at the wall, the door, rather, in front of me. As does she.
I sip my coffee...
But then, just as we reach about ground level and have only that extra ten feet to go, she turns to me and says, “Your cologne is lovely.”

My God!
What could I say? I had to say something!
In that split second, I panicked! My brain spazzed. I was short-circuiting.
Am I supposed to now tell this dear woman that it is another man ravaging her nostrils? Am I to attribute this wonderful odor to someone else? Am I? Should I?
.......... hell no.
“Thank you,” I said, with a bit of a wink, as the doors opened.
We stepped out. We’re going pretty much to the same place.
I made sure that she walked ahead of me, so as not to disillusion her. I didn’t want to startle her with my umm... SPENF. [Sudden Post-Elevator Non-Fragrancy.]
And on the way to our cars, I couldn’t help but notice that her own perfume was absolutely heavenly.
Heavenly.
She obviously does mornings a lot better than I do.......

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