Halitosis -Stinky, Bad Breath!!

I was playing poker last week and this guy sits down beside me, and before I could turn around, I could SMELL him. He had a mighty funky body order working for him.

"Great" I thought...."The stinky kid in class"

We can all remember the stinky kid in class right? -Some clueless parent who sent their kid to school smelly, and not clean. Hair not combed, dirty hands and face, and very quickly this poor kid picks up nicknames like "Pig Pen" "Stinky" and other notables.

Well, this was the kid that grew up from that story. And it just got worse because he was sitting next to me. And of course, it wasn't bad enough that he had body order, a wool winter vest that hadn't been washed (ever) but that this guy literally had the breath that you could take paint off a wall with.

It was horrible.

Now, if he would've sat there at the poker table and not said anything, that would've been ok. But no, he's got to be the chatty cathy, and want to be my best friend.

So he's sitting to my left and I literally turn my entire body around in disgust and have to sit on my chair with my back to him and like half my right butt cheek on the chair just to not smell him. Now you would think that when somebody contorts their entire body to place their back at you, you would get the hint, wouldn't you?

Well not Stinky...

He would just keep sending his pyorrhea breath over my way every hand he got with a synopsis of what had just happened in the last hand, as if he were some poker play-by-play analyst.

Finally this guy goes out for a smoke, and I get up from the table after holding my breath for about an hour. I ask the guys on the other said of him if they can smell his breath and they say it’s the worst thing that they've ever smelled.

Clearly Stinky needs help.

So what kinda help can we get Stinky? Is there an intervention for halitosis? Can we just simply tell him? What protocol do we follow here?

Well, the guy beside Stinky decides to go get some mints from the kitchen, and when Stinky returns from his cigarette break with a coffee in his hand, everyone had just about had enough of him. The man beside Stinky makes sure that he is polite about it, but he gets up and offers everyone at the table a mint.

"Oh, a mint!" I say "What a nice gesture, thank you! I hope you're not trying to tell me something here!" I joked so that Stinky wouldn't feel that it was directed towards him, and also so that he would get the picture we were drawing for him.

His mint lay right in front of him, untouched.

"Here, I already got one, you can have this one" I said

And then it came to pass that this guy said one of the most profoundly stupid things I've ever heard from a stinky guy...

"I don't eat mints" said Stinky

NO BLOODY SHIT...

I don't want to sound like Jerry Seinfeld here, but who the hell doesn't eat mints?! -Especially when you NEED to?! I didn't know that there were mint-eating-people and then non-mint-eating people...

Well, that just pissed me off even more. And to make matters worse, he's slurping his coffee and talking his way back to where he was when he left off last.

So what do you do? Clearly, I went out of my way to be nice to Stinky. I don't think I was ever going to see him again, so do I simply tell him to pop a mint, not talk to me, stop being smelly, or let it go? Should someone like this get away with such bad personal hygiene, and breath? I think not...

But it's got to be one of the most embarrassing things when somebody tells you that you have bad breath. We have all had a time where we've had it, and it’s not nice. But when you drink coffee and smoke, it just compounds it. It really is inexcusable.

He goes away for another smoke break and so I call the pit boss over to ask him if we can force him to pop a mint. The pit boss thinks I'm joking. I'm not joking, I'm deadly serious. -This guy has serious issues.

But in the end, they can't do anything.

So I don't say anything to this guy, but I literally turn my back on him and ignore him for the next 2 hours that he's behind me. Finally, he has to go, and gets up and leaves.

So I ask you, what is the answer to this dilemma? Do I tell him that he has cancer mouth, or let him slide and hope he walks into somebody else that finally sets him straight?

Well either way, Stinky is roaming this world contributing to the pollution in air like a chemical factory, and I hope I never see him again. But if I don’t see him again, please make it easy on the someone next to you and pop a mint just to make sure that you’re not Stinky too…

Please…I’m begging you.