This Veterans Day of 2009 I went on a photographic excursion of modest proportions with an eccentric British American author and photojournalist who befriended me on on the internet.  Since I’m always interested in learning how to better myself, obviously with the camera in this instance, I accepted his generous offer to work as his paid assistant for several hours and accompany him to the Titan Missile Museum.

[I was also quite aware that he'd be toting a super fancy Canon along with an infrared camera.  I was eager to get my hands on his equipment.]

Located just fifteen miles south of Tucson in a town called Sahuarita (about a two and a half hour drive from Phoenix), we didn’t set out until noon because for possibly the first time in my life I was running late.

[I am one of those annoyingly punctual people and I expect you to be the same, too.  If you use traffic as an excuse I will dismissively tell you to leave earlier.]

He insisted that it was quite all right because he had one of those super fancy radar detectors (still a source of awe to me since you’re not allowed to have one in the Commonwealth of Gestapo Virginia) and assured that we’d get there in “record time.”

[Of course, he would have been good on his word if it wasn't for that blasted beep every fifteen minutes which caused him to brake and go, brake and go, brake and go.]

We made it in about two hours.  But – ah.  Never again.

It was clearly a day for firsts.  I’ve yet to recall being an occupant in a vehicle that smelled solidly of urine (and I say solidly because there is no mistaking the smell of piss, trust me, I’ve walked past plenty of alleys) and I had to keep in check my compulsion to frantically execute a commando style sweep under the seats for the dirty diaper that someone had unfortunately forgotten to discard.

[My mind eventually wandered toward the contents of the trunk.]

My own radar which is strongly tied to my olfactory (since my visual faculties are compromised by severe myopia) pointed to the culprit and that was the person sitting behind the wheel.  Frankly, I was not surprised because if there was a smell that could possibly be worse than the tell tale urine which leaked from some unproven yet suspected source, it was the man’s breath.

Hot garbage and rotting chicken skin.  Decay.  There was no mistaking the source of this stink.  It came straight from the Brit’s mouth and his crazy crooked yellow teeth.  Filled up the car like a toxic sulfurous cloud.  Even when he didn’t move his lips I was assaulted by several fetid blasts as it rolled out of his nostrils and perhaps other orifices I dare not ponder.  Like Ebola.

When I motioned to roll down the window he threw his right hand up in protest.  “No, no,” he waved.  “Too noisy.”

I practically begged for fresh air.  “Five minutes,” he said.

Those were the sweetest five minutes of my life.