Anon manages the impossible
Anon manages the impossible
For those that can't read the image:
>playing some mtg with my college group that meets up at my best friend's every friday
>one of the players asks if his friend can join next time we play
>nobody has a problem with it
>next friday rolls around
>everybody gets set up
>knock on the door
>best friend opens the door
>immediate regret
>actual fucking fecal smell emanates from this mass of unkempt hairy adipose
>try my god damndest to be polite and try to ignore the smell and just play.
>he picks up the game pretty quickly, and thankfully he doesn't speak too often because each time he opens his mouth the halitose burns my nostrils.
>we tolerate this for exactly 10 minutes before the poli-sci dude in our group slams his can of altoids on the plaguelord's side of the table and blurts "do not fucking speak in my direction again until you've fucking emptied this your breath smells like death."
>dead fucking silence for 10 seconds.
>plaguelord gets up, apologizes, and leaves
>we try to pretend this never happened.
>next week rolls around, its still on everyone's mind.
>knock on the door
>takes a few moments to recognize the stranger in front of us
>holy shit its the plaguelord, and he's fucking clean
>completely shaved his patchy neckbeard
>is wearing what looks like a brand new clothes, his jeans even still have a sticker on them
>smells vaguely like strawberries instead of rotten onions
>teeth still stained but the halitose is completely gone and replaced with mint.
>apologized for last week, asked if he could play again
>fast forward a few months and now he's a regular at our table, he even brings homemade snacks.
Has this ever happened in your groups or is this some sort of anomaly/divine intervention?
Yeah, fairly similar.
Dude worked with me and two of my players (not mtg, but ttrpg) at a fast food joint back when we were still in high school, and right after.
Guy was dumb as a brick, but just genuinely nice. Always willing to help people out with whatever.
But he was couch surfing. And he'd never had good hygiene (we find out later) because his family were almost homeless, and rarely had fancy things like running water.
His teeth were literally green.
He starts playing d&d and my home brew system with us. Again, dumb as a brick, but he's totally into it, does voices, physically acts things out, just straight baller of a player, the kind that keeps a table on a good vibe.
But Jesus fucking Christ, the smell of the guy. And his skin was horrible on top of that.
Me and one of my friends took him aside after work and talked to him about it. Me being me, I was pretty blunt. Said something like, dude, we love playing with you, you're a great guy, but I've smelled rotten skunk that smelled better; what's the deal?
He was pretty ashamed, but me and my homie reassured him that we liked him anyway, and wanted to help.
Well, dude didn't really have a place, and had to limit himself to one bag. So we talked to my dad, and another friend's dad. Got permission for the guy to shower at our places here and there.
I was a nurse's assistant, got my certification during this time, and ended up having to teach the guy how to take care of himself. It was a bit weird, but as he started getting cleaner, feeling more confident, he'd open up about things. Dude didn't know how to wash his dick properly. So my freshly 18 year old self had to instruct this mid twenties dude in how to keep his junk clean lol. Nobody else involved really knew how to teach someone stuff they took for granted, but I'd had to kinda relearn all the hygiene stuff from a new perspective, so it was easy.
Anyway, a few months into this, and he's looking better, smelling a lot better, and lands an assistant manager position because of it. I mean, it's fast food, so it's a shit job, but it was a big step up for him. And it came with insurance (amazingly), so he started getting his teeth fixed up a little at a time.
About a year and a half passes, and he meets this girl at a party we were throwing. Not exactly a friend, but known to us. She sees him and gets all flustered, red faced and stuttering. Turns out, he cleans up pretty good. He's smiling a lot more because he's not hiding his teeth. He's got better clothes, his own place, he's a new guy from the outside, but still this awesome dude inside.
About a year later, they're married. Me and the ttrpg group are all standing with him, the second of any of us to get married, and the first not to elope lol.
A little over a year after that, he's got a kid new born, and is a regional manager. Still dumb as a brick, but because he's able to follow instructions and the company had good ones, it's something he can do well. Plus, everybody that worked under him loved the guy because he was still just righteous.
They ended up moving to Colorado for her job, and he was stay at home dad for a while. We kinda lost touch except for the occasional email or call, but they were happy and doing fine the last time we caught up.
There's no real moral to all of that, but it was similar enough to the greentext I figured it might be of minor interest.
I'll say this much; it never hurts to try reaching out to someone.
Dude that's wholesome as all heck!
Damn you for making me shed a tear for a comment on a greentext post, what a wholesome story.
Really shows the impact that your family and upbringing has on you. You were good friends and good people for helping him out, so good to hear stories like this.
Legit, my mom and dad were incredible about that kind of thing. I was one of those kids that always wanted to help my friends when they needed it, and my folks put their home, and their income behind that, every time.
That guy, Keith, wasn't the first or last person I was allowed to open our home to in one way or another.
They really did lead by example in how to treat people, especially friends. The number of times an aunt, uncle, or a friend of the family, would spend a few weeks with us after life hit them hard is high enough I can't count them. Goes back to before I can remember because there's folks that spent time with us when I was a baby that still come to visit my dad and me, telling stories about me as a baby.
Massive props to you for helping the guy out like that. Kindness like that can really turn around someone's life.
My family, my parents in particular, led by example, so I give props to them :)
There's a few of my friends that were with us for a while when they needed it, and plenty of other people that are relatives or friends or even a couple of friends of friends or relatives lol.
My folks were reasonably careful in that they wouldn't just let any stranger in the door or anything like that, and they paid attention to what any guests would do around me and my sister. But if they could help someone, they did.
It was really, really awesome knowing that, no matter what other flaws they had as people, if I went to them and wanted to do something for someone, they'd take it seriously and back me up.
I'm glad it worked out for everyone.
Some people legitimately do just need that kick in the ass to discover they're not doing something right. Maybe they didn't have great parents (or they weren't present at all) and never learned those habits. Then society is way too big on politeness and avoiding problems such that nobody ever takes them aside and tells them they need to be cleaning better.
This may legit be the first time he's ever been told he smells bad and needs to clean up.
Back when I was younger in college there was a guy who was very socially awkward and unfortunately had a stink that could be smelt from the opposite end of a long corridor. He used to hang out with another kid who had learning difficulties. One day one of the least nice people in my class said to smelly guy "Jesus Christ, why don't you go take a shower, you stink!" and this caused smelly guy to go bright red in the face and storm off.
Cut to after class and a bunch of us go to the communal area of the college and hang out. Smelly guy walks into the area and walks up to his friend all flustered. His friend asks "Are you alright?" And smelly guy says "Someone told me I need a shower because I smell", friend says very timidly "it might be a good idea." Smelly guy goes bright red and storms off again.
He comes back after about 10 minutes and walks up to his friend and pulls out two cans of deodorant and shouts "YOU THINK I SMELL?!" And proceeds to spray the deodorant over himself in a rage...but then turns on his friend and sprays him like crazy. Everyone around is in shock and smelly guy throws the cans on the floor and storms out of the building. We can all see him out the window and he walks up to a bin and kick it, it doesn't move (secured to the ground) and he falls over, gets up and runs off. We didn't see him for the rest of the week.
The following week he turns up and his hair has been cut, he has new clothes and his aura of stink is gone. People just casually say hi and over the remaining time we were at college people started to talk to him more and were more polite towards him. He'd still hang out with his friend so I suspect that outburst was water under the bridge.
I hope ex-smelly guy is alright in life. That must have been quite the turning point for him.
The power of feedback, and I’m saying that without any sarcasm/irony. Most people never get genuine, honest feedback in their entire lives. The people closest to them shelter them and beat around the bush not to hurt their feelings (or the opposite, they intentionally hurt if they are assholes).
But strangers don’t care about your feelings, they can be honest.
Of course they could have been nicer in the story, guy propably had a shitty night and felt bad, but will thank them years later for this moment that transformed his entire life and gave him a different future.
The people closest to them shelter them and beat around the bush not to hurt their feelings
It's a massive parenting failure to do this to your kids.
My kids have occasionally needed a shower and not been aware. That happens as they go through puberty and learn.
"You need a shower before you head out". Done. No fuss. It's not offensive if you don't tiptoe around it. Mildly uncomfortable the first time but that's it.
They then learn that it's not socially acceptable to stink and that they need to pay attention to themselves.
Ironically they weren't "nice" because they thought it was good manners to stay quiet until it became too much to handle. Not having good manners is sometimes the most ethical option.
At one of the places I worked as a manager I oversaw a staff of in-house techs that made desk-side calls when things needed done. After many complaints, I had to have a talk with one of my staff because he smelled and that I couldn't have him come back to the office until he cleaned up. After that I had weekly check ins with him until the new hygiene regimen became routine.
That was one of the hardest conversations I have ever had and the look on his face killed me.
I've had to have conversations with emoyees before about hygiene, slovenly appearance. One guy about his need to wear a belt because his ass-crack was constantly on display to the point people complained to HR.
It's always awkward.
Belt isn't the best for prevent asscrack, the best is suspenders. I had an ass crack issues, as I was obese it was of course more exposed, and belt never really helped. Suspenders was the game changer.
Oof. Had a coworker who was very on the large side. When he leaned on the side counter, it would display his ass crack so heavily (to the customer facing side of the counter) that you could see it in the shitty security cameras.
Admittedly I was not a big enough person to do or say something. By the time I got there it had already been going on for at least a year. I'm sorry, Andrew.
When I was serving in the US military, we were given extremely strict official regulations to live by, which included dress and appearance. There were rules for how long your hair could be, how to properly button/zip/Velcro your uniforms, no wearing of dirty or torn clothing items, must be clean shaven at all times, always be clean and presentable, etc. All aspects of our lives were maintained by an extremely strict protocol.
One year, we got this brand-new young lady in our unit. It was her very first assignment in the military. At first glance, she was kinda cute. Had kind of the shy Violet from The Incredibles vibe going for her. But when she got close to you, you suddenly realized you could smell her. She reeked of feces and B.O., her breath was like death, and her hair was super greasy and clumped into thick strands. Her pale skin had a greasy sheen to it as well. Also, her hair was out of regulations. She wore it hanging straight down, no bobby pins, no buns or ponytails or braids. It was heavily brushing her shoulders; way too long for women's hair. Hair that long (at the time) was required to be up in a tight bun while in uniform. Also, her uniform hat had very visible grease stains along the edges.
She was pulled aside by our commander and chewed out for not adhering to military regulations, then told to go home, shower, fix her hair (or get a haircut; her choice), and put on a fresh, clean uniform. She left crying.
Soon after, our commander (a Major) got a call from a Colonel at another base. The Colonel proceeded to chew out our commander for "targeting, harassing, and destroying the reputation" of his baby sister. Oops. A Colonel outranks a Major, so our commander couldn't do anything but take the ass-chewing.
From that moment on, that young girl proceeded to be gross and filthy 24/7, and anyone who complained got an earful from her big brother. No one could reason with him; he absolutely refused to believe his darling baby sister would be such a pigsty. And he was stationed in a completely different country from us, so it's not like we could drag him over to give his sister a welfare check. We were forced to leave her alone and suffer from her horrid stench. She was given a job in the back corner of the office, away from other coworkers, and FAR away from the customer front desk.
That was about 9 years ago, and I only worked with her for just under a year before I was reassigned. I wonder where she is now? I'm curious if she was ever forced to acknowledge her awful hygiene habits and change. Or perhaps she couldn't tolerate the "abuse" of bosses and coworkers trying to correct her and decided to leave the military.
Like I said, she was pretty cute, if you could look past all the grime. There was a theory floating around that maybe she had been abused and/or raped in the past, and so she decided to protect herself by making herself as filthy and unappealing as possible. If that's true, it worked. Everyone gave her a wide berth.
Given that each year 30,000 or 8% of US military women experience abuse and your first reaction to this person working as a professional killer with you was "she's cute", it sounds like her ploy worked perfectly.
professional killer
We were Air Force, not Marines. Specifically, we worked as IT professionals. So if anything, we were professional nerds, not professional killers.
I deployed with Marines once. My Marine boss said she hoped to god that she never saw an Air Force member with a gun. That would mean the planes are down, the base is overrun, and the Marines are dead. She said we were the absolute last resort. So she told me that if shit hit the fan, I should hand my weapon to the nearest Marine and hide under my desk until it's over.
Still, you're correct. There was a surprisingly high rate of abuse and harassment of women across the military. My wife also served, and she got plenty of harassment from her peers. Even some guys that didn't think being married prevented them from trying to date her. And there were always stories of people cheating while on deployments. Guys got especially horny on deployment because they were trapped on a military base for 6+ months and there were very few women deployed with them, if any at all.
Early in my career, the guys would joke about the 2-10-2 rule: while at our home station, women they worked with might be only a 2 on the hotness scale, but when you're deployed and had no other options, they'd become a 10. Then you return home and they're back to a 2. They also referred to this as "deployment goggles " (like beer goggles).
The Air Force specifically made great strides in cutting down on abuse of women. We sat through training courses annually, talking about abuse and harassment and how to respect your peers. The culture shifted greatly from when I signed up in 2002, to when I retired in 2022, and we were at a very good place when I left.
I hear the worst branches to serve as a woman are the Marines and Army. They also made great strides over the years, but they still have a much more toxic culture than we do. Heck, there was big news in 2020 about an Army woman being murdered and dismembered because she didn't accept advances from a co-worker. They actually made a Netflix special about her. So they still have lots of work to do. But their culture in general is very toxic, not just against women, but everyone. They abuse the hell out of their members, treating them like govt property, not human beings. So until they can shift their mindset and start respecting their people as living, breathing people and not tools to be utilized, I don't see them improving their respect of women anytime soon.
How'd she make it through basic? Did her big brother tell all the drill instructors to leave her alone as well?
Believe it or not..... it's actually not particularly difficult to make it through basic. The military puts a lot of time and money into getting you there and they want to recoup that. If they kick you out, there goes their investment. For a period of time, they accepted ASVAB waivers. For those unaware, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery is the intelligence test you're given to make sure you're mentally fit to serve. We had a gunny that we found out scored in the 26th percentile. The man could hardly form a coherent sentence. Making it into the military isn't as difficult as people would believe (barring medical and criminal records, can't escape those).
We were all greasy and nasty in basic training. There was practically no time to shower. They implemented a thing called the "car wash." There were 8 shower heads; 4 on each side of an open bay. We all lined up naked, then walked under each shower head, pausing for maybe 8 seconds before moving on. You had until the last shower head to soap, lather, and rinse before you were done. You weren't allowed to get back in line.
Suffice to say, nobody got a proper cleaning and we all reeked.
We had a young guy start working at our store when I was maybe 19, and he was gross! He had, apparently, quite a bad family life. His greasy long hair always hung over his face, and you could tell which aisle he was in from the next aisle over just by the smell.
Once, the store manager was so disgusted that she grabbed a bottle of febreeze off of the shelf and had him spray the whole thing on himself. He broke out in a rash all over and had to go home. She was embarrassed but didn't get in any trouble and the rest of the employees went from laughing to mad at her on his behalf.
Aw poor guy
Tbh, this is me, and I totally get it; I have undersized sinuses so my sense of smell is sometimes less than it should be, and I prefer to not shower because I always feel like I'm freezing when I get out until I dry off. That said, I'm not trying to be disgusting, and actually appreciate if someone politely reminds me to shower because I'm too absentminded to remember to at least shower once a week and before going somewhere with a lot of people. I absolutely will get myself cleaned up if you ask nicely, I don't appreciate cigarette smoke myself partly because it stinks (I don't smoke and neither do any of my family, but unfortunately it's pretty common here for complete strangers to do so in front of doorways to stores) so I can understand if something about me smells gross and you need me to wash.
Interestingly, there's evidence that showering every day is actually too much and it should be twice/thrice a week (essentially every two days) instead. If I could meet that standard on my own, I would, and I'm thankful to be able to explain myself here even if no relevant person will ever see it.
Thanks to OP for this green text. Sometimes people do need it bluntly, I became a better person overall in 2015 because someone who did care about me pointed out some things I'd done that were hurting the people around me in subtle ways.
If you really care and want to improve on this, you can set multiple weekly reminders to do it.
People can't get better without feedback. It's hard to do as a stranger, so those without loved ones can go on in life oblivious to the obvious mistakes they make.
🥳🥳🥳