LotusFear 2005: The Lost Episodes Volume One

I discovered about 3 days into this conference that the "what smells like ass?" question I was asking myself every day was actually a game we were all playing, even though it took us almost a week to compare notes and realize it.

Somehow, I managed to get a cold today. Must have had something to do with being packed into conference rooms with seven thousand other people, of which approximately 1/3 seemed to be sick with some cold or another.

I don't think geeks know they're supposed to cover their mouths when they sneeze. I am pretty sure I felt saliva hit my neck at least 3 times. I'm hoping it was saliva. I didn't really have the nerve to look. Sometimes it was worse than sneezes and coughs. In a previous post, I mentioned my bad luck with planes, trains, and buses. Well, I can now add bathroom stalls to that list. This morning, I was sitting in a stall, minding my own business, when the stall door next to me bangs open, and I suddenly see knees, not feet. “Uh oh,” I think to myself. “This can’t be good.” The guy makes a sound like someone just punched him in the stomach, and instantly starts blowing his breakfast. I never left a stall so fast in my life. I was probably the one that smelled like ass today.

Actually, this morning the first thing that smelled like ass was the huge german guy sitting behind me on the bus. He had to be 6' 5" and around 350 pounds. I think he’s got some creases he needs a hand with reaching. The second thing today that smelled like ass are these little white flowers in the garden between the Dolphin and Swan, the two buildings that host the majority of the conference sessions. They look like baby’s breath, but they can't be. If a baby’s breath smells like this, people wouldn't want to kiss them all the time.

What is it with flowers that smell like shit, anyway? Isn't that some sort of false advertising? Aren’t flowers supposed to smell nice? My wife has a pretty extensive garden around the house, and she gets a lot of her flowers from a wayside gardens catalog. Last year, she planted a huge batch of some sort of exotic daisies right in front of our porch. For something like 3 weeks after they bloomed, I checked my shoes every time I walked by them. I could not figure out what it was that smelled like dog shit. Finally, I leaned over to sniff these daisies, and couldn’t believe it. We’ve called them crap daisies ever since. I think there should be a line in the catalog next to the picture of these blooming yellow and white flowers that says “Warning: these flowers smell like a fresh pile of dog shit. Do not plant near house.” But then I guess they wouldn’t sell as many.