In Saint Louis and It Already Smells Like Dry Rot

Or mildew, or mold, or whatever you call it. I mean from faucets to walls to the water itself: dry rot. I am definitely hypersensitive to this stuff, no question, but this visit is the first time ever that began with my too-enthusiastic rush for STL tap water (it is the best, ever, ever) and then segue: "DRY ROT? The water and the faucet and now my water bottle all smell like dry rot?!"

It's a little sad, but honestly, the city has survived this way for four centuries, nearly, so they'll be fine.

Do you tell your hosts you think their faucets and walls and entire home might be rotting? While mentioning there's a chance that, due to your well-irrigated sinuses, you could be smelling your own indwelling sinus infection, which might be fungal anyway? It just seems a bit awkward.

So yeah, in STL, and I'm working anyway, which is kind of great in the long run. I started out working today at Panera, formerly St. Louis Bread Company, where I realized yet again that I attract all kinds of crazy. Maybe it's my sweet face and calm demeanor, maybe it's a proximity thing, maybe it's just that whiffs of psychosis hit me in the same way that dry rot does -- I sniff it and I'm done. An older man walked to a table near me, and I could only see one side of him, so when I noticed he was having a full-out conversation, I prayed, "Please be wearing a headset. Please, a bluetooth, an ear bud, something, please please."

No avail. Full-out conversation with himself, but probably not from his perspective, punctuated with hand movements and explosive noises and general gun/bomb mimicry. Well, he left, nothing happened, but trust me, I kept thinking about where my knife way (don't you all keep one in your purses too?) and where I'd go and who I'd yell to and how no one there in all likelihood would know how to take him down but Noah always says that punching someone softly in the throat should always work ...

And to answer a question Jeff asked, I think the songwriter who brought us "I Want to Play with Your Poodle" knows if poodle is a euphemism for something.