She smells  like the Flower Room at the Funeral Home I used to work at.

The Flower Room is this little room you walk through to get to the Embalming Room.

Because you have to stand there and punch in a code and then wait for the lock to pop you have no choice but to breath in the heavy, eye watering smell of flowers.

There is no real air in that room, I think in their last efforts to thrive the flowers and potted plants drink it all in and what’s left is the perfume. That God-awful fog of flower stench.

The smell is permanent; that’s where the flowers have gone for the passed 100 years this building has been in existence, that’s where the flowers will continue to go in the future, that’s where they will sit until they’re either taken into the chapel or out to the graveside.

I hate that smell- I hate it worse then decomp, I hate it worse then purge. I hate cut flowers anyway.

Back to the story, she smelled exactly like the flower room and when she would walk by me I’d hold my breath. Because I would have to hold my breath that also meant I never talked to her and when she would stand there and ask me a question my nose would start to run.

It was no loss, whenever I walked by her in the halls she’d say something that sounded like ” Hole-Ah  Sen-your-eata ” in this awful Spanish Accent, which is dumb because I’m not Spanish but she thought I was.

And I learned what she thinks in this world is all that counts.

If she thinks you’re a Mexican, you’re a Mexican, if she thinks that 2 and 2 equals five you better PROVE to her it doesn’t. If she thinks your place is to serve, then darn it, you better ask if she wants you to kiss her backside after you get done kissing her feet.

So here’s the deal.

She expected me to drop whatever I was doing in the morning to open the door for her.

She told me, when I asked why she felt like I need to hold the door open for her when nobody who walked in before or after her needed that particular service, that it was my job to ” support the Staff as they see fit.”

This came from the mouth of the girl who ran the Copy Machines and checked the mail in for our Administration Staff.

I told my Boss what she said. He reminded me I actually out ranked her. He told me to find a way to deal with it and he’d stick by my plan.

 Then he told me not to hurt her to bad.

This was the routine; she’d stand in front of this unlocked door and tap on the glass over and over and over until I walked over and pushed it open. Then she’d breeze by me stinking like 100 years worth of flowers that had been stored in a windowless airless room and I’d have to pull the door closed after her.

The unlocked door.

The one she could have opened herself.

After about a week of this baloney I made my stand.

She starts one morning…tap, tap, tap and she’s pointing down to the door handle and then to her watch and then she starts tapping on the door again. 

This is a glass door and she almost has her faced pushed right into the glass and she’s smiling- she’s smiling this big toothy smile.

I go up to the door and take my keys out.

I hold them up and point to them. 

Then I put them into the lock…And I lock the door.

Then I gave her the finger and walked off.

I don’t hate the smell of flowers the way I used to.

In fact I’d have to say I find them a little sweet now.