Testing a new method of dealing with the "Berkeley Stinkers"

I've written on here several times about the absolutely rancid smell of many of the people who work out at the Cal gym in Berkeley. Once again, I don't mean a simple sweaty workout smell. We're talking no deodorant, haven't showered in days, straight up NASTY smells that make you want to hurl. So last week I tried a new method for dealing with it....because I basically knew there was no way of avoiding a "stinker" at the gym.

Sure enough, about 10 minutes into my workout on the elliptical here came a guy whose entire demeanor just screamed "He's a stinker!!!" And he was. He was also psycho on the elliptical. He had it on resistance level four and was moving his legs so fast I thought he was going to cause the gears in the machine to break. I wanted to say, "Why don't you crank it up to resistance level 10 so that you don't look like such a mad man, and you'll also actually end up getting a better workout?" But I decided to just keep my mouth shut. What business is it of mine if the guy wants to look psycho?

So anyway, back to my little experiment. I always read a magazine while I do cardio and the one I took to the gym that day just happened to have a little perfume sample insert in it for Estee Lauder Beautiful, see ad to the right. I rubbed the perfume strip across my nose, thinking that the sweet perfume smell would overpower my olfactory and block out the stench coming from my fellow gym-goers. It worked for a few minutes but alas, the stench coming from crazy elliptical man overpowered the perfume! I even rubbed the strip across my nose one more time and it still didn't work.

I'm going to keep working on ways to block out the smell of the self-righteous Berkeley-ites who feel they don't need to shower or wear deodorant. Any suggestions?