scatman

Yesterday at work, I was with a customer when this older guy walked into my department.  I've seen him before and he's pretty smelly so I silently cursed to myself and hoped he would just shuffle on out of my area.

He didn't.

He waddled up to my register and put his hands on the counter.  He was a hunched over man in his late 50s/early 60s.  His faded denim shirt hung loosely over faded denim pants that hung loosely on his slanted hips.  His receding gray hair was parted to the side and matte with unwashed buildup.  His blue eyes bulged from their sockets underneath overgrown gray eyebrows that poked out nearly as far as his eyeballs did.  Deep lines formed vertical lines from the corners of his hooked nose.

His hands were rough and splotched with brown stains around his thick yellow fingernails.  He wheezed and breathed deeply as he stared off to the right of me.

"I need some boxers, size 36," he said with a loud urgency.

As he spoke, I noticed a smell beginning to form around him.  I knew he was a pungent one so the odor wasn't entirely unexpected but it increased in depth  and intensity as he stood there.  In fact, in seconds, it pummeled each one of my nostrils with a one-two punch.

"Okay, sir, let me go grab those for you," I said as I made my way around the counter.

I passed him and looked back and that's when I saw it.

THE MAN DONE POOPED HIS PANTS, Y'ALL.

My chin clenched as I looked in horror at the dried brown splatter spread from his lower back to just above his knees.  I actually did a double take to make sure I was actually seeing this.  Suddenly, my eyes were glued to the brown glue smeared along his back pockets.  I smacked into the underwear display, which snapped me out of my trance.

Are you effing kidding me? I asked myself.  I mean, really? Thank goodness we had his size.  I didn't want to take up too much time to search for them and let that smell fester up there at my counter.  I quickly snatched up a pack, took a sharp inhale of breath and made my way back to the counter.

The odor was so bad it felt natural, necessary even, to cry at that point.

I rang him up and fortunately he used his debit card.  I glanced back at the brown stains on his hands and what I assumed was general filth took on frightening new possibilities.  I did not want to exchange cash with those possible fecal fingers.  I mean, even if I were to sack up and accept the money, I didn't want to pass it along to any other customers.  That paper could have been tainted with all kinds of diseases.  Tapeworms.  Hepatitis.  Salmonella.  Campylobacter.  Oh, the horror!   

I bagged his underpants and held back tears as I wished him a good day and sprinted away from the area.  I practically pole vaulted over the counter.  I didn't want anyone walking up and thinking I was responsible for that sewage smell.

He slowly scooted out and left behind an indelible funk in his wake.

A while later, two tween girls stepped into the man's turd trail and said aloud, "Like, oh my God, what's that smell?"  The other girl crinkled her nose and made a gag face.

The smell lingered and I went to every department asking for air freshener.  I went to the department next to the front door and explained the situation.

"Oh, God, yes, I smelled it," a coworker said.  "We were just up here talking and he passed by and it hit us like a ton of bricks."

"Yeah, and did you notice the back of his pants?" I asked.

"What?  Oh, no, I mean I looked back and thought I might have seen..."

"Oh, yeah, you did.  I got an up close look at the goods."

"Oh, God!  Did he really?"  Her eyes bugged out almost as big as the man's.

"Well, that certainly wasn't chocolate milk back there."

She also made a gag face and then mercifully found some air freshener for me.  She then walked around my department and spritzed the stuff all around.  It only helped marginally, making my department smell like a perfumed turd but eventually both smells dissipated.

I don't tell this story to make fun of Mr. Shitty Britches.  Maybe he was suffering from dementia or had a loose bowel/disabled olfactory condition which rendered him incapable of determining when he dookied.  If I even make it to his age, I might end up pooping myself on the regular, too, so I try to have compassion.  I don't mean to be insensitive but unless you're a nurse, you just don't sign up for that kind of clientele.  I was just taken aback by his behind.  How do you handle those kinds of situations?  I tell the story only to say that he is one of many types of unsavory customers I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Most of the time, these people offend my patience and intelligence with their dumb questions and bad attitudes, but more times than you'd think, they find ways to physically repulse me as well.  Whether it be the typical customer steeped in the smell of coffee and cigarettes (a strikingly sickening smell), body odor and bad breath, or, in some extreme cases, someone like Mr. Shitty Britches.

It further serves to degrade the condition of the store and my soul.  People keep telling me I'll find people like that anywhere I go but I have to say, this place gets more than it's fair share of freaks and foul-pantsed patrons.  You have to admit there's a certain class of customer who does and does not shop where I work.  I mean, you probably don't find that many men with loads in their pants at Nordstrom.

I swear, if the job itself doesn't kill me, the customers with their fecally transmitted illnesses will.