Hold Your Nose

Imagine sitting next to a cute teenager, someone who looks like a tree-hugging surfer dude type straight out of "The O.C." He's actually sitting really pretty close to you... because the chairs are really pretty close to each other... and he's telling you about how new he is to the city and how he bagged a super competitive internship and how he is studying comparative literature at Berkeley... and the only thing you can really think of is, dude you are umm, like, totally adorable but you have to do something about your bad breath. that's right. he forgot to pop the mints. or something. while i am enjoying his attention and i admit, flirting just a tad bit, at the same time i was just praying for him to basically shut the hell up. i fiddle with my phone, rustle my papers and smile ever so sweetly and say, "that's awesome!" to pretty much everything he's saying. but that doesn't stop him. finally i am forced to play the age card. i am a professional woman in a decade-i'm-coming-to-terms-with and you, young man, need to do whatever interns do... of course i didn't say all that... i had to "act" all grown up. how irritating!
anyway, back to the stinky breath.. and i know everyone has it at some point... but it's different when you're just getting to know someone vs. someone close you can be frank about it with. so once i was dating this guy who usually smelt v.good. but one day we had gone to a concert and of course you sit next to one another at a performing arts event. he had terrible breath. i was tortured for 2 hrs as he talked and talked. and talked. of course i'm not dating him anymore.