Scent Off!

One of the hazards of martial arts and all the kicking, punching, blocking, falling and jumping that it entails is that the body needs an occasional trip to the osteopath for a bit of an MOT. This is no great hardship, though, as my current osteopath is a rather fabulous woman who has bent me back into shape after all manner of mishaps.

In fact the only slightly disconcerting thing about my osteopath is that she looks like a more attractive version of the larger of the two women from How Clean Is Your House?

This threw me at first as I always thought the HCIYH woman also looked like infamous madam Cynthia Payne so when I first arrived to be treated and she asked me to take my clothes off part of me was expecting ‘hand relief’ and another part of me was expecting an analysis of my domestic hygiene (this is excellent by the way). Instead I got snapped back into place and could walk again but I wasn’t too disappointed in the end.

My most recent osteopath visit followed another muscle-twanging martial arts class and my back, legs and skeletal structure were soon returned to tip-top condition. So I returned home and showered before going into work.

But later in the day at work I happened to smell my hands and noticed a distinct smell of condoms and I could not work out where it had come from. So I turned detective...

Suspect one... was my ostepoath’s bench. My hands had clung to it earlier in the day. But this wasn’t rubber so I ruled it out immediately. Or was it?

Suspect two... was condoms. But I haven’t been near these little fellas in years and so haven’t had to find amusing one-liners while fumbling around before getting jiggy.

Suspect three... new nice smelling shower gel (ponce). I am a recent convert to Molton Brown (rich ponce) and had that day tried a new type (rich but adventurous ponce). Could this be the culprit?

Suspect four... knee pads. The things that support and protect my knees while in class. But had I touched them that day?

Suspect five... I just smell odd. After all I have ear and nasal hair these days so what’s to stop me also smelling of rubber contraceptives. I’m happily married so anything else is possible.

So, like in all good thrillers, I located and questioned all of the suspects. And, like all good policemen, I beat the crap out of all of them until the knee pads eventually admitted it was them. Gotcha! But they may have been covering for the shower gel...