March 20, 2017

Horse 2245 - Out Of Deodorant? I've Found A New Manly Smell

Some time late last week I ran out of deodorant and started using a new can. Much to my disappointment it started coming out as a chemical salty mist and was more like christmas tree flocking than anything else. By about lunchtime, so much of the salty residue had rolled down the inside of my sleeves and onto my desk at work that I had to buy another brand entirely. This new one smells like two tanker trucks of acetone and paint stripper had a head on accident on the motorway and the contents of both tanks have spilled out all over the place.

If I was Grand Poobah and Lord High Everything Else, then I'd start up an industrial research company to find the manliest gruntiest rip-your-head off smell, that was acceptable and put that in a can. Such a manly man spray would have to have the following ingredients:

1. Artline 19 Marker
The No.19 industrial marker from Artline comes with the warnings: use in ventilated conditions, keep away from children, harmful, and contains xylene. As far as I'm aware, the No.19 chisel point and No.17 bullet point markers are meant for drawing on the side of glowing boilers. Xylene (apart from being worth 16 points in Scrabble) is considered by the EEC in its Dangerous Substances Directive to be "harmful".
I realise that as I use it at work, the aromatic hydrocarbons are probably doing serious damage to my brain; though I don't see that as an issue because I have two cats and probably also have a case of toxoplasmosis going on. I just think that it smells glorious.

2. Kiwi Boot Polish
The last pair of shoes that I bought in America have failed in away that I have never seen shoes fail before. The top layer of plastic lacquer has come away from the leather and now the toes of the shoes look awful. When I could polish them though, getting out a tin of Kiwi brough along a smell which has been roughly the same since 1914.

3. Castrol TTS
I know that other two stroke additives are available but Castrol TTS 2-Stroke is in my opinion the definitive additive for motorbikes, chainsaws, lawn mowers and line trimmers. This is the default smell for mowing the lawn, of motor bike racing and of chainsawing things.

4. Bacon
"We have too much bacon" is a phrase in which I understand every single word but not in that order and not in that context. One of the greatest ironies in history is that God's chosen people, weren't allowed to eat it, and even now, vegetarians with their smug piety, their lentil clogged hearts are saying "ba-con, ba-con, ba-con" with every beat. Everybody's heart beats for bacon.

All of this was a pipe dream though. You can't take the smell of Artline 19 Marker, Kiwi Boot Polish, Castrol TTS and Bacon and fuse them all together in a deodorant. It's not that this isn't possible, because I'm guessing that some chemist somewhere with a decent knowledge of esters should be able to produce such a thing but the reason that it won't be done is because the amount of grunty rip-your-head off manliness that would be unleashed would be like if those two tanker trucks of acetone and paint stripper were driven by Martin Skrtel and Mr T - the universe would implode.

Actually there is a manly man spray which already exists; it already comes in a can and it already smells glorious:

WD-40

Want to lubricate machinery? WD-40. Want to loosen up a sticking lock? WD-40. Want to clean up gardening gear? WD-40. Want to stop your saw blades from rusting? WD-40. Want to stop that horrible red clay that you find in the garden from sticking to the shovel? WD-40. Want to cool drill bits? WD-40. Plus, it comes with a doohickey thingamy whatsit for getting into cracks and crevices; so that's a bonus.
This stuff is so manly that it was first used to stop balloon tanks of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion; later it was used on the Apollo missions for exactly the same fuction. Quite literally, this smell went to the moon.

WD-40 is the James K Polk of smells because WD-40 already is the universal smell for getting stuff done. Sure, the side of the can might carry a warning that it may cause irritation to the skin but surely you should expect that from the manliest gruntiest rip-your-head off smell in the world.
It also smells wonderful.

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