It used to be so easy to be romantic. Back in the days before the invention of daily showers along with a long list of smell good bacteria killing products, men used to get the attention of their desired lady friend by rubbing apples under their armpits until they have a thick coat of natural sexually stimulating pheromones. This would drive the women insane. They would hold on to these “love apples” throughout the night dreaming of the wonderful man who had rubbed it with such passion on hit ripe pit.

Mostly men going off to war would leave love apples behind, much in the same way a loving husband might leave fresh flowers for his wife to find before leaving on a business trip.

I never had the chance to give her a love apple, but I found the love of my life in high school. Before that whole mess was over with, I was left alone to watch her run off into the sunset smiling hand in hand with some other guy. The new guy that served as my replacement took showers only to celebrate special occasions. You know, one shower on Easter and Christmas, and they rest of the time he sprayed himself with a bunch of Febreze and called it good. To make it worse, he was in my first class, and I could smell his pheromones. Even though he sat on the other side of the room, they made their way across the sea of air and penetrated my noise making my stomach sick. I stared at him with the meanest look I could. I thought maybe I could scare him.

The problem with that is I am a goofy looking guy, so I guess my mean look gave the impression that I wanted to talk and be friends. So he comes across the room and sits down right next to me. He was nice and tried to talk to me about all sorts of things. Being the polite pushover I was I responded but all I could think about was his smell, a putrid smell that burned every wall of my sinuses.

It made me thankful we lived in the century we did. This guy was really starting to take a like to me for whatever reason, and I never even wanted to see his love apple let alone have it given to me.

The idea of his love apple all over my high school sweetheart came to mind and I got a sick feeling in my throat. So I looked over at his face and told him that I hated him more than anything else I could think of at the moment and that he was the ruin of society. I blamed all the worlds’ problems on him and the stood up looking all offended. He walked back to his seat and sat down like nothing ever happened. That summer he took his truck and his thick layer of rancid fatty acid covering his skin to Virginia. My world became a better place.