"Mr. Stanky? Is that you?"

The Stankmobile was in our parking lot when I arrived for work today. And here I was hoping for a good day.

I entered the building, expecting to be hit about the face and neck with Mr. Stanky's reek. Surprisingly, though, the air smelled fresh. I crept to the workroom door to peer out at the computers and spied Mr. Stanky seated about mid way down the row. Other computer patrons were seated to his immediate left and right. They were also conscious. I still detected no foulness on the wind.

Then I noticed that Mr. Stanky's hair had been trimmed and combed and his usual sweat-soaked/stained t-shirt had been replaced with a blue-green colored suit coat. Upon closer, yet still distant inspection from the other side, I saw that he was also wearing a shirt and tie, which looked rather crisp.

Mr. Stanky had apparently undergone one of his quarterly hosedowns. It's a rare occurrance, that we've noticed in only about one out of every ten visits he pays us. And as pleasant as it is not to be attacked by his stench, it's also sort of disconcerting. It's like you're encountering the Mirror Universe version of Mr. Stanky, where he's a fine, upstanding and lemon-scented citizen. Of course, this illusion doesn't hold up so well if you get too close to him. No matter how scrubbed and polished he might seem at first, his foulness is so pervasive that he usually has some degree of contact stench left over from his house.

Still, I'll take any amount of relief I can get when it comes to him.