Sweat Story

Long ago, when the American sitcoms were the "in thing" (it was not so much propaganda) I remember watching one, growing pains, I think. But I can't remember correctly. Anyway it was about 4 girls who were staying together with the teacher at a private school.

In one of the episodes, the high society girl, Brittany (I think) came back from an aerobic session all wet and sweaty. Blair ( the girl from Bronx) said" You'd better go take a bath and change, you're all sweaty." Brittany replied glassily " I don't sweat, I glisten". Blair replied " Well, you are glistening like a pig."

Well, we all sweat and have the smell that follows. As a cyclist, I must admit, I have never sweated so much in my life. The smell of my sweat has stuck on my cycling clothes. So much so my wife has given up in trying to find new deodorizers.

Anyway, the following story is not about a sweaty cyclist but of an incident that happened to me on the Monorail. I think this story is quite a common occurrence, given the number of people who take the train. But for me, the uncommon thing was the attitude of the girl in this story.

I took the monorail one day from my office at Sultan Ismail to Maharajalela, where Eddy's office is situated. He had given me a lift to work in the morning and was supposed to pick me up after work. I decided to save him the trouble of the jam and decided to take the monorail to his office.

When I boarded the train at Sultan Ismail, it was relatively empty, a girl stood immediately in front of me, with headphones on, seemingly oblivious to everything around her. Nothing strange about that. The train went on and soon began filling up. At Bukit Bintang, it was quite full, I suddenly noticed a very strong smell of an undeodorized person wafting in the air. Air condition coaches keep the smells in. Looking round, I saw this big Indian guy, all sweaty, who had just come in. He came and stood behind me, hanging to the rails, adding his powerful fragrance into the train.

I was smiling at the thought, when suddenly, the girl, (who apparently just noticed the smell) turned around and glared at me. I smiled back at her. She looked very angrily at me. In my mind, I was thinking, "Here I am standing next to you for almost 10 minutes, and you don't notice me at all, and when the smell comes in you think it is me?"

As if an answer to my thoughts, the Indian man spun round, walked down and hung his hand, on the rail beside the girl, his armpit in her face. She had to turn away. I had to control myself from laughing out loud.