Smell travels East to West

For the next three days I am doing a wee acting gig thanks to Cultural Cruise (thanks babycakes). This gig causes me to take the skytrain a different route than I am used to. Instead of traveling from the picturesque City of Burnaby to the now violence ridden armpit of New Westminster, I am traveling from the perfumed Township of Burnaby to the apparently WET CROTCH SOCK SMELL ridden downtown Vancouver. Evidently people in the Lower Mainland begin to smell as they head towards the big city.

Instead of sitting reasonably solo at the back of the train for a quick 3 minute jaunt, I am spending 30 minutes with my closest (and I do mean close. In some countries, I would be married 8 times over for the amount of familiarity fellow commuters now have with my nether regions thanks to roaming hands and...well...umbrellas. But really...lets not go there) friends and ALL of them. I repeat ALL of them smell like REALLY BAD B.O.

Every time I get on the train, I do the Secret check. No, not THE SECRET check (and seriously, if you KNOW "the Secret", you also know...well, its not really a secret. Our mothers have been telling us this for years! Its so silly, I can't even say it.) You've all seen it on the Secret commercials. Women everywhere "nonchalantly" checking their pits for the slightest soupcon of odour. I am embarrassed to say I have become one of those women.

I am fastidious when it comes to body odour (over sharing, I know, but live with it). I shower BEFORE I go work out, play football, go run, just in case I may incur extra smell. I KNOW its not me that smells, but I check every time.

I don't get this. WHY does it smell so much? I know what you are saying "Sasskitty you BOOB, its because there are so many people on the train".

No...this is not so, for on my RETURN trip with JUST AS MANY of my close groping neighbours, there is no smell.

No B.O. No crotch waft. No feet sweat. Just the sweet smell of...well...nothing.

Can you explain this phenomenon to me oh faithful reader? Why is this? You would think people would smell worse as they reach the end of the day, not better.

I have no solution. I have no pithy words of wisdom. I am merely putting the question out to the universe in the hopes that the stinkys will...well...WASH!

In the meantime, I think I am going to invest in some nose plugs. And a jock.