I give great importance to the opinions of others

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One of the many problems I have had in the office is that I give too much importance to the opinions of others – “I still keep writing,” as the sarcastic people in the previous paragraph will say – and, of course, I become a hostage of the judgment of others. Not uncommon, the severity of the judge sentencing me is rare. Freud will learn a lot from me.

I quickly entered the elevator, and as soon as the door closed, I smelled the smell of the breath: a disgusting perfume, a mixture of regular chewing gum and those stupid flavors that taxis used in the 1980s. It’s so sweet and satisfying, it can give you diabetes with just one sniff.

Who was the dark creature that left this trail of olfactory destruction, I thought. Doesn’t the Geneva Convention prohibit this kind of thing? How could the United Nations and the Vatican allow this to happen? What is Buba’s phone number?

I kept imagining someone so strange that he would voluntarily put such a terrible perfume on his body. How terrible can your body smell when you try to cover it up with this fragrance bomb? It’s like plunging into a Chernobyl reactor to get rid of the smell of Fukushima.

I held my breath—before I had a stroke—and pressed the downstairs button. Two floors, you can take your breath away.

The elevator did not go down. On the contrary, it rose. What was merely tragic became a disaster.

Obviously someone will come, and someone will think that I am responsible for the environmental disaster. Now you’re screwed. The final sentences I issued a few seconds ago will all turn against me.

Who will appear in the elevator? Alexandre de Morais? Odette Roitman? Future neighbor? This is able to make the event go viral through a video of your disgusting face in Stories. damn it.

The psychoanalyst’s phone went to voicemail.

A young woman entered, with a serious and sharp face, and the look of a primary school principal. Everything I need. He formally greeted me good morning, and stood a little further away, watching the door close. No sign of rejection. Or nausea.

For a moment I thought she was going to save me, maybe her sense of smell was a casualty of Covid, or she was too Christian and charitable to comment on the situation. At least in the field of scents, there is no cancellation in sight.

I hope. Halfway downstairs, she glanced at me over her shoulder, the classic side of her eye. Nothing else was needed. For those who live in fear of the judgment of others, a drop is a letter.

I thought about explaining that the smell was actually in the elevator, that I was not responsible, and that it was clearly the work of the devil, but that would make the situation even more pathetic. The damn lady even wished me good luck on my way out.

Well, now the story is going to spread like wildfire.

Since then I have been in agony. I don’t know whether I would pay for an ad during the Jornal Nacional break to say that the smell is not mine or whether I would hire assassins to go after that little lady. Maybe a t-shirt that says “It’s Not My Fault”?