Estrogen Overload at Starbucks

I’m sitting there, typing on my laptop, and a woman comes in with that smell. I call it the estrogen smell, but concentrated–I assume some people like this smell, since many women go all out to overwhelm us with it. Some have said that I say lesbians have this smell, but so do women who have just worked out. It’s an odd, female scent. I just call it Estrogen Overload.

Anyhow, I’m at a far end of the Starbucks, and I notice this woman talking loudly and aggressively, with her female partner/friend standing next to her. It turns out, she used to work here. I guess she wants to act like rude customers since she is one now–don’t become this person; don’t go around dreaming of acting like the people you once hated, it is another act of backwards moving, when we need more progressive human beings. Either way, she’s standing in front of the counter saying how long it’s been and what’s been up with her and her women, all the while she’s talking at the volume of yelling, swearing, and all sorts of customer liberties.

I soon notice the distinct aroma of estrogen flowing over me, and around me, and probably through me. It didn’t take much guessing to find out where it was coming from. At this point, she was still at the counter–she hasn’t moved for over fifteen minutes, nor has she stopped talking. Other customers have to order about five feet away from the register, giving their money over the little trinkets, cards, and gifts they have lined up, over the barrier that some registers have, since the woman refuses to move while musing loudly about her life. Again, another rude customer benefit she partakes in–not moving for other people as she stands dead-center in front of the registers. Either her old coworkers don’t want to move her or are afraid of her gigantic raging. Half the time it sounds like she’s going to fight with them, but she’s just retelling stories about people that were going to fight with her, ironically enough.

Of course, it amazes me that her vision is so obscured in terms of her surroundings, but also did she really have to have the estrogen smell? Whenever I see manly women walk by, I don’t want it, but I anticipate it. I’m rarely, if ever, disappointed–if being disappointed by such a revelation will just lead me to be disappointed regardless overwhelmed by smells, since this aroma is unappealing to me. This is probably why I associate the smell with lesbians, but more towards angry, raging, or overtly active women whom seem to sweat too much or not shower enough, thus creating that abundant scent. (On a side-note, a co-worker said she lived with a single lesbian who didn’t have the smell, but when that girl starting having a relationship with another woman, the smell suddenly appeared. So it’s the smell of happiness, too?) Either way, once you smell it, you know to avoid it or be drawn to it, depending if that’s your flavor or not.

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The Cast

My co-worker broke his leg, and he had to wear a cast. He needed to work to survive, so they kept him working, he just had to sit a lot. I found him in the fitting room, giving fashion advice to customers and calling for stock checks when he needed them. At one point, I come in, and there is the overwhelming scent of toe-jams. It’s the potent, concentrated foot smell that some people get just by not washing their toes–and other people get it by sweating and wearing shoes without ventilation–and others just have fungus. It is that smell, close to the scent of feces, that I walked into that day.

I look at him and his cast, and I leave the fitting room. He’s a big guy, and even though he’s funny and laughs, he gets mad, too. I didn’t want to offend him and end up with a broken leg of my own.

Soon, I return to the fitting room, and he calls me over.
“Hey, come here.”
I hold my breath, and approach him.
“Do you smell that?”
“Um, yes,” I reply.
“Does it smell like toe jams?”
I look around. “Yes.”
“Okay, so it’s not just me that smells it.”

So he tells me he already smelled his foot and his cast, and it isn’t from that. Just as we’re trying to track down the scent, the room I’m standing next to opens. Wow, the smells that erupt from that room were overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe. Even worse, they opened the door to ask for a size. I did my best not to make a face, and quickly got them another size, telling them to just leave the clothes they didn’t want on their door. Neither of us wanted to put those clothes away, and the customer, being of good hygiene and manners, did leave the clothes in a pile on the floor. So in a sense, it looked like what it smelled like long after they left–a pile of poop on the floor.

Even though he had a hard time walking, he got up using his crutches, and hobbled out of the fitting room to get fresh air elsewhere in the store. As usual, I had some unsuspecting co-worker put away the clothes, and advised them to wash their hands right after.

Customer Types: Lowered Expectations