Ugh. Does anyone smell that?
It permeates the nostrils like the feet of someone from Woodstock (all the sick, open Port-O-Potties they smudged around in): stank, dirty, offensive, poopy.
Yes, I said poopy.
When I walk outside across campus and pass the new green growth, I pass the colors of a yearly pastel spring, I pass numerous undergraduate and graduate students, I see the landscape workers piling high what seem to be mountains of cow pie.
Then I realize there are wood chips in it, and cows don't exactly have issues with wood chips. Joy to this time of year, when the trucks dump tons and tons of peat moss all over campus.
Um, it's more like feet moss.
Once the green buds of summer leaves push their way into the warm March and April air, the landscapers pull open the bags of refined cow dung and spread the goodness around each building on campus.
At first, I think it's the overwhelming freshman B.O. (since they finally realized they don't have to shower before they go to class). Then I think it's probably the runner covered in sweat passing by. Then I think it's the dog walker with her sheep dog with ratty hair, but the truth prevails when I walk across the path of freshly laid moss. I forget that spring isn't about the smell of tulips or the rebirth of forestry evergreens. Instead, Ball State's campus is littered with the remains of nature's butt hole.
Hi, Peat.
The breeze stiffens and people start sniffing up gobs of mucus and snot, overdose on Claritin and cover their mouths because of the peat moss odor. Thanks to moss, pollen and all other things sacred, allergy season has peaked and the smell of feet -- I mean peat -- has given the campus the smell of homegrown cow pasture.
How on Earth does this schtuff make the flowers grow? Peat moss is something rotten, and it's used to make life.
As a child, working on a tree project during camp, I realized my first fears of actually being allergic to something. My parents can't have penicillin, but I can. I've never swelled from a bee sting, and I don't blow chunks after drinking milk. In my little-kid world, I wasn't allergic to anything, until that fateful day I planted a baby tree with the help of Peat.
Cough, sneeze, red eyes, runny nose, the trots, internal bleeding, hair falls out, tooth decay, loss of eyesight.
Yup, I was finally allergic to something: nature's butt hole.
And Ball State lovingly spreads it all over campus.
I offer no alternative nor cure to this problem. I just know others must share in my headaches, red eyes and gagging, because of the feet smell that stomps its way through campus once again.
For the first time, I actually praise the men and women who wear gallons of cologne and perfume, and I am knocked over by their scent.
Although, since it smells like a giant latrine, perhaps someone should walk around campus and light a match.
Write to Evan at
emann@mr-potatohead.com
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