Mine is a pretty tame example: I never minded the smell of garlic was fine around it… but I took a job for DHL and they had these large tubs of garlic for horses that had to go out to people. There were about 10 of them coming down the belt.
Now I can’t stand it. I’m just reminded of how strong that smell was I was actually gagging. The tubs were heavy, the handles were feedble. Some of the tubs were damaged so I got a bit on me.
I stunk of it for the rest of the shift. It wasn’t even a normal garlic smell it was just so powerful and nauseating.
Red Bull. For several years when I was late teen / early 20s, I’d go clubbing all weekend… always drinking red bull, then inevitably overdo it with the disco biscuits and have to puke.
~4 years of that, and I’ve anti-Pavlov’d myself so that even the smell of red bull sets me heaving.
Christmas carols. Being forced to come back to a retail job over the Christmas rush a little over a week after my brother was found dead on the floor outside my bedroom :)
The boss there had a very personal bone to pick with me, made it clear she didn’t even have to give me any bereavement leave since I was part time, and when a customer went on a Mach 4 tirade because I wasn’t smiling hard enough (not kidding), she backed them up and threatened to fire me in front of everyone.
12hrs+ of this every day. I preferred working by myself in back because people would leave me the fuck alone to do my job, but it turns out it was also useful for intermittent off-camera crying!
To this day, 13 years later, I can still tell you the exact playlist that was on the radio. That was when The Fray’s How to Save a Life was still big and I used to really like that song, but I can avoid it now a lot easier than I can avoid “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
It got me forcibly stopped by the police once, when I couldn’t take it anymore, ran out of the store, and the owner assumed I stole something. I really just don’t leave the house after October.
Fuck! that’s rough.
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your ex-boss’s armpits.
12hrs+ of this every day
And this is legal where you live?
Yes? Although I should back up and say that for retail, those are holiday hours. My normal hours were like…16 per week, tops, and that’s all that was available in the area. Because as long as my total hours per week are kept just barely under 40, I don’t get to have healthcare!
…So we just played russian roulette with the bills and I had to quit when the stress combined with simply not eating began to impact my health at work. Being unemployed did not improve the situation.
I don’t know if you’re aware that full-time often goes to 60-80hrs+ per week, but that works out to about the same. I’ve only very recently persuaded a roommate to stop pulling all-nighters on a salary. They were literally going all last week surviving on naps, but eventually admitted that they almost never actually hit the cash bonuses they were
aiming forhaving dangled in front of them anyway. So hopefully I can keep them to that.These are extremely common tactics, as is any job from a temp service having an employment policy that resembles a revolving door, wherein no matter how hard you go, they are going to fire you just shy of a month or two, after which they would have legally had to hire you and give you super gross things like benefits.
By the time the French revolted, their peasants were eating grass to survive. Most of us are still at least eating food for humans. We’re probably going to ride this to collapse.
My last job before my current one, I would routinely work 20 hour shifts, with 4 hours off, followed by a 20 hour shift. Normally would do that 4 days, followed by 4-5 normal 12 hour shifts with a 12 hour turn around.
Security jobs can really suck.
As a side note I worked in a doctors office and how to save a life was on the radio station they had on. Every hour . On the hour. For days, weeks, months. It drove me insane. It’s such a shit song.
Finally I switched the radio station to classic rock for one day. It was amazing. The next day they had switched it to the local country station. Which was playing lone stars mr mom. Please go listen to it. Now imagine listening to that every hour on the hour for days, weeks, months.
I can still recite both songs by heart.
“It’s only Monday, Mr. Mom”? Yeah, that was probably back when I was in middle school. It was a super popular song on our preferred station in the morning. Have not heard it since. Still remember half the chorus.
I would like to point out that forcing prisoners to listen to a single song over and over for hours is a form of torture used by the CIA. And also commiserate, because that same boss forbade anyone touching the radio whether she was there or not on pain of termination. She really, really liked country.
For a breather (this was before I worked there), she brought in her very own CD to play over the holidays instead of relying on the stations, I guess because they possibly didn’t have an xmas lineup? This was acceptable on paper, but then she left for the day, the tape got stuck on The Little Drummer Boy, and nobody was allowed to touch it.
The coworker telling me this attested to having listened to The Little Drummer Boy 27 times in a row, on the edge of derangement. This is ok to do to a person, because they are a US retail worker and not a terrorist.
I’m ok now but for many years anything coconut would roil my stomach. Thank you Malibu rum.
For years I couldn’t smell or drink sprite without smelling or tasting vodka since in high school I had a coworker who would buy me handles of vodka because she liked contributing to the delinquency of a minor (she was also a substitute teacher and is the reason I know what Salvia is)
I would mix it 50/50 with sprite.
Smirnoff Double Blacks for me. Was the poison of choice for many as it was one of the first alchopops with 1.8+ standard drinks in a bottle. The mere sight of them makes me shudder.
Known locally as “Gin Bilog”. It is the cheapest gin in the stores. Back when i was a student, we used to dink copious amounts of this, mixed with soda or juice, water or even pure.
but one time i had a fever but did not want to miss a party so I still attended it. Even though i had a fever then, i still drank the alcohol as though i was not sick.
after recovering from the fever, i noticed that i am repulsed by the gin and cannot even stand the smell of it. up to now i haven’t drank a single sip of that drink.
I can’t stand the smell of pickles and vinagre anymore. I worked in a pickle factory for two months when I was in uni, and I smelled of vinagre 24/7. I also had some sort of alergic reaction where a billion pimples popped out on my face, and it wasn’t a good time.
The jalapeño production line was especially bad, as the hot vinagre dropping on the jalapeños releases this very strong smell that quite literally felt like it scratched and cut your throat as you breathed in.
Pay was good though, so I powered through those two months. I dont really eat pickles anymore.
Mirrors and moreso scales. Having overcome an eating disorder makes me avoid those.
My mom’s favorite thing is cherries. I love my mom and I love cherries, but she ate so many that I can’t stand the thought of eating fresh cherries. It’s been maybe 20 years since I’ve had a fresh cherry and I expect it’ll be many more until I can sit down with a bowl. Love cherries in dishes though.
I have the same experience, but with watermelons. During the summer my dad used to buy the biggest watermelon that he could find. It was fine the first day but after that you get bored of the taste. When he saw that we’ve only eaten a quarter of the watermelon, he’d try to convince us to finish it. This was repeated a couple of summers and now I can’t stand the taste of watermelons, even in gums or candies. The taste isn’t bad, it’s sweet, but it tastes like to much work.
I make watermelon steak when I get tired of eating it raw. Its just grilled/pan-roasted watermelons that have been sliced into planks and rubbed with a marinade. The texture changes and feels a bit meaty & chewy, so its not watermelony at all.
Here’s an easy recipe for anyone interested : https://insanelyeasyrecipes.com/watermelon-steak/
My brain is struggling so hard to comprehend what that will taste like. Super interesting!
Growing up, whenever I was sick with an upset stomach, my mom would give me 7up to drink. I dunno, I guess she figured the carbonation would help? Now decades later 7up still reminds me of the taste of vomit.
I dunno, I guess she figured the carbonation would help?
Mostly I figured this was done because whatever they use to make the lemon/lime flavor in sprite/7up/etc doesn’t seem to digest all that quickly, comparatively…
…so when you inevitably vomit again, it doesn’t taste QUITE as awful or burn your throat quite as bad because it’s at least LEMONY bile and stomach acid instead of just pure bile and stomach acid.
The sugar is “neutral” (7) and potentially offsets the pH of the hydrochloric acid in your gut, too.
Puking too much pure stomach acid for too long and not rinsing your mouth out afterwards can cause rapid tooth decay, I’m told.
I once bought a box of cracker jack from a gas station, and I am so glad I looked at what was in my hand when I pulled a handful of what I expected to be delicious caramel popcorn and peanuts was actually a handful of disgusting maggots/mealworms (IDK what exactly; I just know it was wormy bugs and not cracker jack).
Now I can’t really have caramel popcorn without wanting to vomit.
Eggs. Scrambled, fried, poached, hard boiled, soft boiled, sunny side up or down. My little brother stuck Nickelodeon gak in my mouth while I was sleeping and it had the same texture/taste as cooked eggs after being chewed.
I can’t do eggs. After being pregnant even the smell of them being cooked turns my stomach now.
Childbirth.
I can’t watch scenes in movies, tv, mentions in books/papers, friends talking about it etc. I can’t do it.
My daughter’s birth in 2020 was all kinds of traumatic and I avoid the topic at all costs.
Same. I’ve had two traumatic childbirths for different reasons. I do not care to be reminded of the experience.
For me, anything “bubblegum” flavoured or smelling. When I was a teen, I had to have 4 teeth taken out, but it was done in 2 sessions so I didn’t have my entire mouth out of action (it was my back teeth on both sides, top and bottom), and both times the mouthwash, and the numbing gel they used before the injected one was bubblegum flavoured, and I can’t stand it anymore because of dealing with my teeth being pulled out my face
The song “you are my sunshine”. It makes me cry when I hear it and I’m not a fan of crying at least not from what should be a happy children’s song.
I’m in a similar situation with “little drummer boy”, irrespective of the group/ band covering it. My heart hurts when I hear the ‘rumpa-pum-pum’ and its been like this for decades. :(
As a gigging musician, I play the Little Drummer Boy challenge every year. Perhaps you would enjoy it!
https://littledrummerboychallenge.com/about/official-ldbc-reporting-form/
Thanks for this. I love Christmas music and Christmas would lose flavour if I didn’t hear LDB. Now if only my heart would stop hurting at it.
Both this and ‘you are my sunshine’ just instantly flip an emotional switch for me, I don’t know why they make me want to cry but they just do
Do let me know if you come across/invent a cure.
That was my dad’s favorite song. Really I don’t listen to Christmas music because it reminds me of when I had parents and extended family.
Mine is that song “don’t go chasing waterfalls” because I think the message is bad to tell people
