Bom Chicka Wah Wah!

Not sure of the month, but this column originally ran in 2007. It's been a few years since Axe has been popular among America's young men, but I still remember the odor. 

The Unilever company ought to be tried for olfactory crimes against humanity.

It is the maker of Axe, the cologne of choice for teenage males. In television commercials, gorgeous, sophisticated women are reduced to whorish tarts over the product, throwing themselves at the feet of gawky boys solely because the latter had the good sense (but not good scents) to douse themselves in Axe. All these women belt out “Bom Chicka Wah Wah!” as they attack their male prey.

Heady stuff, to be sure.

But I’ll let you in on a little tip, guys: Axe should be spelled Ass, because that’s what it smells like when applied as liberally as many of you do.

All things in moderation, said Ben Franklin. Except Axe, he would have amended, if he had the misfortune to live in a world awash in the stuff.

Axe reeks. Axe stinks. Axe is just plain gross.

As a high school teacher, maybe I’m more sensitive than most, as my room reeks of Axe intermingled with the sweat of gym class and the sour odor of test anxiety, a pungent brew that lingers even after I’ve thrown open windows, wiped tears from my cheeks, and prayed for a whiff of anything sweeter – trash, cow manure or rotten eggs.

In the hallways, I can take attendance by closing my eyes and inhaling deeply. Axe has 15 variations – body sprays and deodorants in a mélange of musky scents – and I can recognize each from the distinctive way it makes my skin crawl.

But maybe that’s just me. From a young age, I’ve rebelled against the bottles of cologne given to me at holidays and birthdays by well-meaning relatives determined to make me smell like a man. Or to keep me from smelling like a man, if one thinks about it. It is doubtful the first Neanderthals returned from a long day’s hunt, the smoking pelts of wooly mammoth around their necks, smelling lily-fresh from the prehistoric version of Axe they’d applied liberally during the day’s stalking.

(My mother-in-law was taken aback a few years ago when, snooping through my bathroom cupboards – not really, but the image is too vivid to resist – she found all the cologne she’s been giving me for Christmas since 1989 stacked up neatly in a corner. She hasn’t given me any since, and I thank her for it publicly.)

I hate the smell of cologne, all cologne, and drenching myself in it would make me long for a hot shower. I don’t want to have a distinctive smell, thank you very much, unless it’s the smell of nothing.

I’m apparently in the minority. Some men keep bottles of Axe – or Axe-like products – in their pockets, whipping them out in restaurants, airports, and movie theaters, apparently in need of a little Axe Effect, as the commercials term it, that “Bom Chicka Wah Wah!” moment when the sweet young waitress, baggage handler or ticket taker will tear off her clothes while moaning the company’s slogan.

Meanwhile, a small but significant minority of the population reaches for inhalers, hoping to keep airwaves open long enough to escape the reek. It’s a class action lawsuit waiting to be filed, I tell ya.

So here is a little Axe challenge of my own. If any of these smelly guys can – in real life – make women behave in a way that approximates the Axe commercials, I will donate a case of Axe to the elementary school of his choice, to help the next generation of virile, young studs achieve a similar level of success with the opposite sex.

My guess is that women are just as grossed out by the smell of ass – er, Axe – as I am, and that they have never been drawn to an otherwise geeky male simply because he smelled like every other geeky male on the face of the planet.

But that’s just my guess. If anyone can prove otherwise, that hotties will really prostrate themselves before a man because he smells like something that can be bought by the gross in every Walgreens and Wal-Mart in North America, I will cheerfully admit my error and start bathing in the Axes of Evil myself.

After all, I’m not opposed to more Bom Chicka Wah Wah in my life, only to smelling like a manure spreader to get it.