Why I hate Abercrombie: or, gagging and coughing on my way to work.

I have about had it with the goddamn Abercrombie and Fitch flagship store, guys. It's bad enough that people--excuse me, not just people, but midtown tourists, on whom I love to lavish contempt because I'm a New Yorker and they're not, and because they clog up the sidewalk with their slow-ass walking and sudden stops in the middle of a crowded corner and cause me to almost lose my balance as I swerve out around them daily on my hurried route to and from work--line up literally around the block to get in all day every day. And it's obnoxious enough that the reason they line up for the overpriced and not-all-that-cool merchandise inside is because they post a shirtless beefcake in the store to chat with the ladies and get his picture taken. Seriously. See the above picture. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to beefcakes, and I certainly don't want to give the impression that the sight of a hot piece of manflesh doesn't get me excited, but when it's being blatantly used as a ploy to get me into a store, that kind of makes me angry. From the perspective of someone who hates to see anyone's sexuality being blatantly abused to sell stuff, it's just kind of gross.

But if those were the only obnoxious things about the store I probably wouldn't mind so much. It's the fact that apparently the lines that beefcake draws are not enough for them. Whoring out a man's body is not enough for them. Oh no. They can't stop there: they also pump the scent of their godawful cologne out of all their doors in clouds so thick that I literally cannot walk through them without gagging. It makes the entire corner of 56th and 5th reek at all hours of the day. I can't figure out how the tourists can sit/stand/lounge around for the hours they typically do waiting to get in without passing out from lack of oxygen. No, I am not exaggerating. It is really that bad. And the cologne in question is AWFUL. It's like Preferred Stock mixed with lead or something. It smells like metal and fakery and is completely unsexy. And they pump it out into the already-polluted Manhattan air like it's a tonic for what ails people.

I guess maybe the idea is that the scent of the collogne, when combined with the lure of the hunk of man-meat inside the store, will inspire in women an overwhelming pseudo-sexual urge to go inside the store and buy things. On a social acceptability level, I guess this works. There are people lined up out there all the time. But, really, it's a bad plan: researchers in Chicago have found that the smell of men's cologne actually reduces blood flow to the vagina (no blood flow, no arousal).

Take that, Abercrombie.