Ugh.

This is my mental reaction to a certain seriously hygiene-challenged reporter at my work. I've blogged about her before and the story, I'm sad to say, has not gotten any better. It's gotten steadily worse, to the point that whenever she walks into the room and I see her, I mentally do that jerk-back-and-shudder thing that cats do when they see or smell something awful. I usually look away as quickly as possible, try to stop an actual shudder, and hope to hell she doesn't have any pages for me. I feel bad about it simply because my reaction to her is so bad; I feel like I'm being mean. But I'm not. She really, truly is that bad. The stench is unbearable, her social skilss are null, she definately lacks some mental something that everyone else has that makes them ... intelligent? Aware? Not-oblivious to the basic necessities of a toothbrush, soap, and the use of kleenex?

And I hate to add ugly to it, because that really sounds petty, but good gods I've never seen anyone so ugly. Most people, if not terribly attractive or even if they have some anatomic oddity, can be gotten used to over time; the brain stops seeing horror and instead just sees Joe or Jane. Not this woman. People make jokes about people who are so ugly that they really should wear paper bags over their heads; I'm not joking, and I'm not trying to be mean. She really, really is god-awfully ugly. That combined with everything else makes me want to disappear when she's around, and I hate myself for that but I can't change it.

She flat-out, in a way that no one and nothing else in the entirety of existense does, sickens me.

Today she walked back to the production department and stood at my boss' desk for a few minutes (I'm assuming she had handed him a page or two with corrections to be made) and when she left, she left a bit of herself effluence behind. My boss looked up after she'd finally left and said to me that she really stinks today, and the look on his face was enough to make me even more thankful tha she hadn't come to me. Now, understand something: my boss is one of those very laid-back, don't-make-waves, easy-going people who rarely ever complain, no matter how bad something gets. The kind of person who, if you hear them cuss, you know the shit has hit the fan and you run for cover if you're smart, because they never cuss. The fact that he mad emention of her stench means it's gotten much much worse than when last I had the horror of smelling her.

I suggested that maybe we should finally say something to the managing editor about her, and he actually agreed that it woudl be a good idea. The realization that not only was her stench enough to make him - one of the hardest-to-shake people I know - cringe and mention it, but that he is considering finally bringing it to the attention of her boss has me quite honestly queasy. I don't want to know what she smells like today, if it's that atrocious.

A good fifteen minutes after she left the room, he could still smell the stench that envelops her.

This is beyond disgusting. It's beyond sick. It's beyond atrocious.

This has to end.