There comes a point in every teenage boy’s life where he starts to experience some changes. New clothes, new hair and new smells. As a professional teenage boy, I can honestly say it wasn’t an enjoyable time in my life.

Puberty is as confusing as it is awkward. Suddenly, you have to start caring about your appearance. Your mom isn’t going to lay out your clothes. She isn’t going to fix your hair and brush your teeth. You’re eleven. Start taking care of yourself. You’ll have to figure out how to match clothes and what to do with your hair.

Being a teenage boy in a middle school locker room is something no one should have to go through. It’s truly one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. Fortunately, Big Pharma made the decision to capitalize on those uncomfortable years. They invented deodorant.

At the same time, something wicked began to brew. From the darkest pit in the deepest circle of Hell, Satan begat the bane of the boy’s locker room– body spray.

In 1925, the Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of poisonous gases in war. In 1983, French hygienists found a lost cache of mustard gas in the woods. Given that using the gas in war is literally a crime against humanity, they decided to bottle it in aerosol form and sell it to the general public. Thus, AXE Body Spray was born. Earth got a little bit darker that day. Which is ironic, because aerosol body spray assists in the death of Earth’s ozone layer.

Alright, maybe that’s not completely true. But in the war zone that is a boy’s locker room, body spray is undoubtedly the poisonous gas. Body spray is like those kids that wear headphones around their neck and blast music on full volume. It’s loud, obnoxious, and it ruins your day.

Deodorant is like the quiet kid wearing noise-canceling earbuds. You know he’s there, but you don’t bother him and he doesn’t bother you. You put on deodorant in the morning and then you just forget about it. That’s the beauty. It’s a quiet little good-smelling angel that sits on your shoulder so no one smells your nasty pits.

No one knows the guy who uses deodorant. Everyone knows the guy who uses body spray. And not in a good way.

He comes sauntering out of the locker room in his “bro tank”– really just a ratty, cut-up T-shirt. He didn’t shower. His hair is plastered to his face by sweat. He reaches into his gym bag and pulls out Zyklon B-in-a-can and sprays it. Everywhere. A blind man, or woman, would have better aim than this guy. The spray goes everywhere. All over him, his bag, the walls and anyone else unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire.

Even Starr’s Mill’s valiant commander, principal Allen Leonard, had some choice words on the subject. “I think that, for our students, deodorant is much better than body spray because it’s almost impossible for a student to overuse deodorant,” Leonard said.

Leonard speaks from experience. “I have a seventh grader,” he said, “so it goes down even deeper than just [high school] students. Body spray abuse is a very common problem among the male students from sixth grade to 10th grade.”

Clearly we have a crisis. And it isn’t just an American thing. AXE was invented in 1983. In France. According to Unilever, AXE was first forced onto unsuspecting Americans in 2002. For 19 years, AXE had been running amok in Europe, obliterating the odorant receptors of unsuspecting Europeans kids.

Sure, deodorant has some cons. You have to reapply it and you get pit stains, but that’s a fair trade if the other alternative is destroying the environment and poisoning innocent bystand

OK, so you’re a high school student, and you overslept (typical). You are racing out of the door in order to keep your attendance occurrences down. If it was 1991, people would tell you that you smelled like teen spirit, but nowadays we call that odor B.O., and it is not pleasant.

In the wonderful world of 2016, we have body spray. Body spray is the good-smelling mist all your boys use. It makes them go from smelling like a locker room to just out of the shower.

Some people may challenge the heavenliness of body spray and argue that deodorant is a better alternative. But will deodorant make your kid smell good after their workout? No. Will body spray? Yes.