splutter

Around about eye level in my company's lavatory (the spacious disabled one at the front of the building) there's a small, blue box made of translucent plastic hanging on the wall. It's been there for the last year or two and I've never really had cause to notice it much before. But just now I nipped away from my desk for a moment and, as I was drying my hands, it spat out a cloud of sweet-smelling perfume, narrowly missing my eyes and enveloping me in a haze of chemicals. It reminded me of the moment in 'Anchorman' when the broadcaster, steeped in a foul-smelling aftershave called 'Sex Panther', has to be hosed down by cleaners, one of whom exclaims 'this is worse than that time the skunk got caught in the photocopier'.

I returned to my desk, coughing and blinking, and realised that I now smell as if I work on the ladies perfume counter in the Kemptown branch of Superdrug. Not an effect I was gunning for!