One late afternoon toward the end of my sophomore year of high school, as I reached the outer edge of the lobby, I got a whiff of a familiar odor. I spotted Zeke and walked toward him. With each step, the smell grew stronger until I finally realized it was Zeke’s nasty feet.

“Dude?” I said with a confused look on my face.

He nodded and smiled like an idiot. Once we got in my car I said, “What the fuck, man? I could smell your stinky-ass feet from 100 feet away.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s been bad all day.”

“That’s beyond bad. I can’t even breathe over here…oh, this is horrible. I’m not driving you home unless you ride with your feet out the window.”

“If that’s what you want.”

The wind swept the putrid odor back into the car and infested the once perfectly-good oxygen. Zeke bought a bottle of air freshener and sprayed it on his feet. Now, he smelled like cinnamon potpourri mixed with an old, sweaty gym bag. When we reached his house he left his sandals upstairs while we played video games in his basement. He still stunk, but it was bearable.