Begin Commentary: I’m still not going to write out the story of how he got his nickname, but I can tell you another story about this man. Peanuts generally smelled terrible, like extremely strong body odour tinged with regret. Thankfully I did not often have to work right next to him, but getting anywhere near his person was usually enough to make my eyes water.

Except for one day, when he smelled nothing like his usual horrible self. He smelled strongly of something else. It wasn’t a pleasant smell really, but it wasn’t offensive either. Something about that smell was also plucking at my memory, and it took most of a shift to realize what it was — floor cleaner! At a previous job I’d worked with industrial floor cleaners and he smelled exactly of those.

My first reaction was “Yay, it’s not B.O.!” My second reaction was “…but why floor cleaner?” [January 17, 2012]