The Mother Halitosis

There was a strange odor in the car, like someone had pooped in it. And, then she spoke, and out came a whiff of such unbelievable smell. Instinctively and subtly I touched my nose and winched—curse be my strong sensory acuity honed over my meditation practice!

Now, do you tell the person or not? It depends. In the end I did in a nice way. In the meantime we were going to have a Mandingo do, which, except for baby-regression over the papayas, there was not going to be frothing and slurping at the mandibles.

Brushing one’s teeth alone may not help with bad breath—also known as halitosis. For some people the problem runs deeper—no pun intended.

Memsahib was and still is (across the Atlantic) an extremely passionate and, by extension, very greedy in all her enterprises, including eating. The problem is as we grow older our metabolism slows down and, if you take in more than necessary to burn for fuel for daily activities, the excess has to go somewhere. Often the extras are sent into storage, resulting in big stomachs, swollen faces, and wide enormous buttocks. Since the storage process takes time, the excess food piling in the stomach turns to literal putrid pit latrines. Hence, the deep and nauseating foul breath oozing out of Mother Halitosis.

In the end, food, which has pleasure properties to encourage body nourishment for survival, morphs into suffering of obesity, foul smell and possible encounters with diabetes and other organ malfunctions. At the same time, the brain organ, for one, produces a mind that is cloudy, full of negative emotions of anger, revenge and resentfulness, inter alia.