We just had a good laugh remembering this experience in our lives:
Years ago now, when we lived in Los Angeles, Steve applied for a life insurance policy. The company sent a nurse out to our home to take a blood sample. When she arrived, she was very pleasant and cordial, but she had put on so much perfume the smell was actually profoundly offensive – not because of the particular fragrance, but because the fragrance was so completely overpowering, all but asphyxiating. It just took away your breath.
She came in and began going through what she needed to accomplish with Steve. I wasn’t needed for any of this. At some point in this process, I went upstairs to my office to work.
Probably about 30 minutes later, I realized that she had apparently finished and left. However, the smell of her perfume had been so intense I could still smell it upstairs in my office at the far corner of the house. It was still ghastly overpowering.
I hadn’t heard from Steve in all of this time and wanted to be sure he had successfully survived his blood draw. So, I yelled down from my office, “My god! I’ve never in all my life smelled so much perfume. I can still smell it up here in my office. She must have taken a bath in it! I thought nobody could possibly put on more perfume than my mother, but this stinks to high heaven! I’m going to open up the house up here to let it air out.”
I was concerned that I didn’t hear back from Steve. Was he okay?
Well, talk about a faux pas of the first order… He hadn’t said anything because he was sitting downstairs with her and with her needle in his vein! She was still at the house and had clearly heard my foaming at the mouth about her overdose on perfume!
Needless to say, Steve never heard back from that insurance company at all. He had to get his life insurance policy from another company. My guess is that this lady was so offended by my rant that she never submitted the blood work to the lab at all.
I certainly did not mean to offend just as I’m sure she had not meant to offend us with her heavy-handed perfume application just before getting out of her car.