My propensity for fighting uphill battles, tilting at windmills and making yellow snow into the wind is indubitable. Therefore, the ensuing fume will no doubt be disregarded out of hand by aromatic people. I’m shamelessly allergic to perfumes and colognes.  When I’m in close proximity to those who luxuriate in essential oils and aroma compounds, I suffer headaches, watery eyes and irrepressible choking. Once, after walking past the perfume counter in Macy’s, I projectile vomited and my head spun 360 degrees just like Regan (Linda Blair) in “The Exorcist.” An attentive priest’s ritualistic attempt to evict the fragrances failed. He was wearing Unforgivable by Sean John.   

Animals are defined by their scents, aka, pheromones. Deer, fox, skunks, beaver and dung beetles all find mates and mark their territories with Eau de toilette. The perpetuation of their species depends on the tactical employment of their unique scents. Scents are utilized to repel as well as attract. If hyenas can’t attract mates, no baby hyenas are produced. This happenstance ultimately leads to hyena extinction. If a wolf pack doesn’t consistently mark their territory, they’ll be overrun by marauding rivals and peter out. In the animal kingdom, this behavior is known as survival of the smelliest. Maybe that’s why Paris Hilton tagged one of her eight egocentric perfumes, Just Me. Paris intends to perpetuate herself at our expense.

One of the most annoyingly expensive places to encounter pathologically fragrant people is a restaurant. Aside from exhibiting comically debilitating asphyxiation symptoms, I’m prevented from enjoying the savory dinner I ordered. My senses of taste and smell are overwhelmed by the pervasive bouquet of Kokorico, Meow or Midnight Fantasy. Honestly, I didn’t order a lavish feast just to have it taste and smell like Forbidden Rose or Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis, holy shi...taki mushrooms! The essence of Bruce Willis should smell like gunpowder, blood and guts, not Lindsay Lohan. Live fragrance free or die hard, girly man.   

Accomplished servers have the good sense not to wear scents. Their job is to present gastronomic delights at their full potential and make our repasts memorable. If my server smells of anything other than the lamb shank I ordered, I’m relocating to the bar. Theoretically, bartenders smell like Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan. Going to the movies is also problematic. Countless times I’ve paid $10 to watch a blockbuster movie in a packed theater and had no alternative but to sit inside the kill zone of a fragrant person. They adore soaking in Mariah Carey’s Lollipop Bling and therefore so must I.  I’m sorry, but Mariah isn’t my cup of essential oil. I prefer the lusty aroma of hot buttered popcorn and Thin Mints.

Synthetic fragrance aficionados enjoy the company of other aroma addicts. That’s a lethal combination for me since I get two blasts of perfume and/or cologne for the price of one. Imagine sharing a summer gondola ride up Whiteface Mountain with a couple who interchangeably bathe in Hillary Duff’s With Love and Justin Bieber’s Someday.  Surely the senses of smell and taste these people inherited are now vestigial organs like their appendixes. Whatever happened to a morning swipe of Old Spice or Secret and maybe some witch hazel or Big Moose balsam sachet. Is it really imperative that you reek of Brute and Beyond Paradise day and night. Gee Poopsie, all I need is the air that I breathe just to love you. And, don’t call me Shirley.

Feigning journalistic integrity I delved into the history of perfumes and colognes. I learned that synthetic scents were first concocted by Persian chemists who decided that desert travelers required potent olfactive stimulants to mask the omnipresent fragrance, “Pong de Dromedary.” Initially the chemists, who anointed themselves perfumers, simply slathered camel infused nomads with pricey vanilla extract. Shrewd perfumers began adding inexpensive coumarin, which smells like Bruce Willis. The complex 50/50 formula allowed perfumers to reduce overhead and jack up prices thereby creating a lucrative oasis industry. The first viable perfume was christened Midnight at the Oasis. It smelled like Maria Muldaur’s 1974 malodorous musical sonnet to Rudolph Valentino. Camels who complained that perfumed riders caused them headaches and watery eyes were slaughtered and roasted in pungent curry.  Incidentally, my research uncovered a celebrated painting entitled “The Perfume Maker” by Rodolphe Ernst. If you ask me uncle Rodo, your painting stinks.   

Prior to the Persian perfume epiphany, humans rolled around in poop to deter evil spirits and horny second cousins. I’m transported back to those heady days when I get a whiff of aromatic Yankee’s fans sporting Derek Jeter’s Driven. Who doesn’t wanna wear cologne inspired by a dirty, sweaty jock who showers with twenty other dirty, sweaty jocks. What’s Derek Jeter trying to hide? Why does an aging ball player wanna smell like a ballerina? Oh, I forgot. Jeter’s fragrance smells like success everywhere except Detroit.  

My sinuses pucker when I watch those film noire fragrance commercials with shirtless, greasy, unshaven, slick haired Matthew McConaughey clones.  They slither through the steamy night to rendezvous with femme fatales of the same odorous ilk. I can only imagine the conflagration when McConaughey’s The One Gentleman and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely collide in the night. It’s gotta be like sitting in the waiting room of the Shima Surgical Clinic in Hiroshima at 0815 (JST) on August 6, 1945 when “Little Boy” came crashing through the roof. BAM, we all fall down.      

What’s my recourse? I could unretire, relocate to Motown, document my allergy and file a workplace Americans with Disabilities Act discrimination law suit. Detroit’s scent free workplace policy includes perfumes, colognes, candles, magazine perfume samples and “air fresheners.” Sadistically, there’s no penalty for employees who ignore the policy and suffocate coworkers in adjacent cubicles with Antonio Banderas’s Diavolo. It seems I’m left with wearing Cass Creek Skunk Lure from Amazon.com and changing my name to Pepe Le Pew. Polecat mercaptans are the only proven deterrent to the apocalyptic passion that is Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds. Fair warning fragrant people, at $4 an ounce I can afford bathtubs of alluring and/or repulsive Skunk Lure.