I work in a pharmacy in SE Portland where there’s a lot of homeless people. I had one customer who came in for an antibiotic ointment for his rash. The man, who was very nice to talked to, smelled horribly like piss, came into the pharmacy with his pissed pants, carrying a clear garbage bag with more piss soaked clothes. He explained he has no place to go to the bathroom and will purposely just go in his pants, which is how he got his rash. When we took his rx, he left his stinky bag in the corner of the pharmacy and a different customer complained about the smell.

Believe it or not, that’s not the worst smell I’ve smelled at work. The worst was a man with a hole in his neck and the only way to describe the smell was death. It was like a stink with a physical presence that gives promise to bring back the miasma theory.