A while back, I decided to call him Smelly Boy, a tongue in cheek reference to the odour that radiated from my son. He smelled bad even after a shower. I discovered that for 3 weeks, he had bathed only in pure water because he had run out of soap, and could not be bothered to get a new bottle from under the commode.
One can only imagine the slurry of bacteria, milling about under those armpits, feasting on his teenage sebum and sweat.
Unwilling to enter into direct confrontation with my teen, I resolved to be tolerant of the miasma that hung palpably about my son. Till one fateful night. This huge thing came crawling onto my bed into the tiny space between his Father and I. Along with the huge thing came the smells of 5000 farts.
I lost it. Persnickety Petunia lost it.
The smell was so bad and it assaulted me in what I considered my bastion of cleanliness, cosiness and safety. It was like Sauron's dark forces had invaded the elven refuge of Lothlorien, and I, the Galadriel of my bed, rose in my queenly glory to repel the... the... the... unspeakable PONG!
GO. AND. DISINFECT. YOUR. ARMPITS. NOW.
He was unspeakably smelly and I was unspeakably angry, having done with many gentle admonishments. In the grip of my fury, I invented a Persuasive Line of Action. I told my son that if he PONGED me again, I would collect my pee and spray it here, there and everywhere in his room. I did think of using Milo's pee but I thought too that Milo would be very disturbed if I rushed towards him every time he tried to pee. It is easier to collect my own pee, and/or his Father's pee. Smelly Boy would then have to sleep night after night in the miasma of our ammonia.
That would put him through the exact suffering he puts us through every time he comes within 1 metre of us.
And whaddaya know. This Pee Discipline works like a charm. Smelly Boy no longer smells bad at all.
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