There are a number of downsides to getting old but one of the worst parts about it is that I continue to get stinkier as I age. One of my odor problems has had nothing to do with my age, I have always produced foot sweat that smells like cat piss. Yes, my foot sweat replicates one of the worst odors on the planet. Before I could afford multiple pairs of basketball shoes to rotate, I would wear a pair for six months or so and the smell was so pervasive that when I would put my shoes in the trunk the funk would make its way into the passenger compartment. Unfortunately, this smell seems to be genetic in nature. Last week I took Aiden to get basketball shoes and when I took off his shoes to try on some basketball shoes I was pummeled by a familiar stench. Apparently, the cat piss foot stink gene is dominant. As if the kid doesn’t have enough problems to begin with, now he has to be concerned about taking his shoes off. “Aiden, most of the people who go in our hot tub take their shoes off.”

” I’m just going to keep them on Mrs Smith, I feel more comfortable leaving them on.” Typically I see something like this as an opportunity to ridicule my children so that they can experience what I went through as a child, examples which I may have mentioned before are as follows. My dad called me pizza face due to a bit of an acne problem that ironically was passed down to me by him. In addition, he would tell my younger brothers not to squeeze my head or it might explode. Lastly, he also called me bean pole because I was quite skinny. However, I chose not to mention the pungent smell that almost made me throw up in my mouth.

I have managed to control my foot stink by purchasing an inordinate number of basketball shoes as well as foot powders and arm and hammer balls that you can put in your shoes to keep them smelling fresh. However, I don’t think there is much I can do to combat the smell the rest of my body creates. On Sunday morning I played tennis against some random guy I hooked up with online, it’s not as scandalous as it sounds. The site I joined allows people to find other people to play tennis against and Eric and I squared off Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Eric was out of shape and we only played five games, bye bye Eric. Due to the fact that I did not get my tennis fill for the day I ended up Playing Joe that afternoon. I showered after playing Eric but somehow managed to start stinking so bad that I noticed it five minutes into my warm up with Joe. I smell so bad that our dog will go up to the laundry basket and stick his entire head in it and rub up against my soiled basketball clothes, he fucking loves it.

The fact that my dog loves to stick his head in my dirty laundry, roll in dead stuff, and cover himself in the seepage that comes out of our santicart when I clean it out as if it were cologne that attracts female dogs like moths to a flame, makes me wonder why I, and all other dog owners, other than Michael Vick, love our dogs so much. My dog is a royal pain in the ass, he takes the insole out of one of every pair of my shoes that he has been able to gain access to. I walk with a limp because my shoes are uneven and I have no idea what he does the insoles, I am hoping someday I will eventually find all my insoles along with all the socks I use to have who have lost their mates. That day will be the best day ever. My dog also wanders about the house sleeping in no less than a dozen different places at night, one of them being on my pillow above my head. He’s not a tiny dog, he is an Australian Shepard and is a medium sized dog. He also licks my bald head while he is on my pillow and will sometimes lick my pillowcase trying to lap up my head grease. If one of my kids came in and tried to sleep above my head on my pillow I would lose my shit, but I just pet max and move down on my pillow out of his tongues reach.

The torment Max inflicts on me pales in comparison to what he has done to the children. This past summer Shirley’s nephews were here and we went out to Green Lake for the day. The two of them were out on the water carpet that was attached to our walk out dock. I was sitting in a chair about fifteen feet from Max and saw him see them, unfortunately another disadvantage to aging is you don’t move real fast, before I could stop him he had made his way to one of Shirley’s nephews, nipped him, made him cry and quickly moved on to the next one, nipped him, and made him cry. His instinct is to herd and he was trying to herd them, and he thinks he must herd all children that come into his purview. My initial instinct whenever kids cry in front of me is to immediately tell them to stop being pussies. The reason I have this instinct is because that is exactly how I was raised. Neither my mother or father showed any type of sympathy for me or my siblings. Had I walked into the house with my arm pointing the wrong direction after playing with my friends they would have told me to shake it off. That is why my kids know to seek out Shirley when I acting like pussies and claim to be injured.

The reality of it all is that Max is the only one who is waiting for me at the door when I get home with his butt wagging (Australian Shepard’s get their tales lopped off) ready to jump up on me and greet me after I put in three to four hours at the office. The kids are on their devices, Shirley is up in her office working and oblivious to anything going on in the household. The only communication carried on is one of them asking me whats for dinner. It’s that unconditional love you can’t get anywhere else, that’s why I put up with Max-hole.