Travel Tuesday: Work travel stinks.. or maybe it's just me

I'm traveling all week.  I left Monday morning, and I return Friday night.  Nothing glamorous (Cary, NC and Des Moines, IA) so no photos to regale you with.  I just have a story of a few stinking, bad choices. 

When I arrived in NC last night, after checking into my hotel, I decided to take a trip to Trader Joe's.  I had a couple of hours before an evening conference call, I love Trader Joe's, and there is one only a few miles from my hotel.  How could I resist?

This trip was Bad Choice #1:  Going to Trader Joe's on an empty stomach.  As I was wandering around aisles of lovely food, I perused the frozen foods aisle.  Some frozen Indian food caught my eye.  Then I remembered that my hotel has a microwave and a kitchenette.  I thought to myself - why not  buy frozen Indian food an cook it myself for dinner instead of going to a restaurant?

This was Bad Choice #2:  Cooking Indian food in a small, enclosed space.  Somewhere around mid-way through cooking the first dish of my main course, I realized the error of my ways.  Cooking Indian food stinks and the vent fan in this hotel room was NOT up to job.  My entire hotel room now reaked of curry.

I mix and match outfits for work trips, so the sweater I was wearing (which now smelled like channa masala) had to be worn again the next day.  Yikes.  I immediately opened the hotel room windows and tried to get out the rest of the curry smell before all of my clothes were polluted.

The room still smelled slightly of curry the next morning, and I was headed into a day-long meeting.  I really don't want to be known as "Lani - you the know the one who smells of curry"  - so I started to think about ways to make myself smell a little better.

Unfortunately I am trying to pack a little lighter with the personal care products, so I didn't bring any perfume.  Then I remembered that I had an In Style magazine with me.  There are lots of perfume ads in that magazine!  So I had a brilliant idea.

An idea I now call Bad Choice #3:  Rubbing a scent all over yourself that you've never tried before.  I found a perfume sample that seemed to smell pretty good.  Still worried that I smelled of curry, I opted to use as much of that sample as possible.  And did I ever.  Unfortunately I failed to think about what would happen if that lovely scent didn't mesh well with me. 

And this one didn't.  All day I got to smell the slightly rancid smell of a perfume that doesn't quite work.  Around 10:00 am I had a headache.  After lunch I felt a little nauseous.  Around 1pm I started to beg gum off of my colleagues, as the mint seemed to mask the smell.  Fortunately dinner was outside in the warm, spring air, so I was saved from smelling the perfume any more. 

I'm now back in my hotel room, in my PJ's.  I've showered, and somehow housekeeping got rid of the curry smell.  Ahhhh.....