A Yankee Candle© store in Virginia Center Commons Mall started a running joke between three somewhat geek-like Doswell boys, and they simply won’t let up, much to the irritation of their parents, other teens and most adults.Apparently one of the boys made the comment upon passing the scented candle purveyor last Friday evening that it would be funny if there were a “Skankee Candle”, which sold less appetizing, disgusting, even revolting scents. According to eyewitnesses the boys then went off on personal tangents on the various flavors sold by the fictional store.
The oldest, Brad Ziffer, started out with clever, modest, almost humorous names for the fictitious scents, including “Laundry Hamper”, “morning breath”, “Truck Stop Restroom” and “Britney Spears”, which he added would smell like Cheese Doodles and flat root beer.
The middle teen, Wesley Armstrong, chimed with in with numerous more off-color fictional scents, like “egg fart”, “Tomcat wiz”, “Wino vomit” and “eau de crazy cat lady”.
The youngest, and by far most obnoxious of the three, Allen Duffey, in a pathetic attempt to “outdo” the two older boys and fulfill some urgent desire to fit in and be accepted because according to classmates at Patrick Henry HS he has no other friends, has rattled off several tasteless, nonsensical and completely unfunny scents that are unnaturally focused on bodily functions, like “Lon Chaney’s boogers”, “sour butt”, “bloody urine” and most regretfully, “pus-filled infected kneecap scab”.
And, to the regret of everyone else, the three boys refuse to let the joke die, instead hammering home joke after joke after joke, often at inopportune times. For example, when Duffey heard that Ziffer’s great-great aunt in Wisconsin died, he reportedly never said he was sorry and did not express any condolences. According to Ziffer’s father, Brad Sr., Duffey stopped in mid-thought, then after a few seconds uttered “Dead old lady scent!”
“It was tragic and unfunny,” said Brad Sr. at the worthless lad’s pitiful attempt at humor. “These boys need to let that ridiculous joke stop. It wasn’t funny when they started it, and it sure as hell ain’t funny now.” There is universal agreement among all listeners that the further this joke goes, the more unbearable it becomes.
Ninth- and tenth-grade classmates of the three boys have even said the time is rapidly approaching that a “playground beating” may be the last resort to getting the joking to stop.
However, according to participant Wesley Armstrong, the teens have no intention of letting go at this time. “The Skankee Candle jokestream will continue as planned,” Armstrong said earnestly, to the eye-rolling consternation of his mother, who was driving the three boys to Ashland’s Lanshark Computer Store, then to GameStop in their 2005 Taurus wagon. “We got a million of them. Listen to these: ‘stomach roll cheese’, ‘black banana’, ‘porta-potty party’, ‘stomach bile', ‘post-nasal ooze’ ‘anonymous floater’ . . .”
