I have a smelling disorder or rather a disturbance of the olfactory sense, meaning in my case, an almost total loss of smell. Maybe a couple of broken noses when I was a teen are to blame; one while playing baseball and the other skiing at Alice ski hill. A few things I can smell though, are gasoline, aerosol sprays and reefers.
I read recently that a blue-green algae put a damper on Fourth of July celebrations along the Treasure Coast of Florida. Events were cancelled and businesses were suffering. The reason is that a smelly, “guacamole-thick” muck is fouling a stretch of beaches and, “it stinks to high heaven”, a spokesperson was heard to say.
Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency because of the growing algae problem. A hotline was developed for residents to call when they spotted a growing algae bloom. And they did – by the hundreds
One resident stated to a newspaper reporter, “It’s just been incubating and you can see how thick it is. The smell is just atrocious.”
Even environmental activist Erin Brockovich is saying that animals in the water are in danger. If they don’t listen to Erin, who would they listen too.
After evaluating this catastrophe, what caught my attention was not the colourful algae or the disgusting muck, but the smell. I’m bearing this in mind because If I could smell that sewage in Florida, I would be convinced that it is really a stinker like they say but I can’t prove it one way or the other as I’m not down there.
Too smell or not too smell reminds me: Shortly after I got married about 50 years ago, my wife asked me how I liked her perfume. I said, “What perfume”. A week or so later she asked again about her perfume, apparently a much more expensive one, L’air du-Temps, I think. I confessed that I couldn’t smell – period. I hadn’t told her because I wanted to be perfect for her. With a toss of her head and a look on her face that made me think of an apparition from scary movies, she or it growled back at me, “There is lots more than smelling that is wrong with you”. These days I have a new partner. She uses perfume only occasionally so I never have an issue – anyway, she doesn’t wear it for me when she does.
So I wonder, how bad is that smell in Florida, really. Back in the day in Westmeath, the smell of the paper mill from Portage, if the wind was blowing in this direction, was an annoyance to so many people. They couldn’t deal with that sulphur-like odour and complained more about it than a cold bitter day in February. Not me though, I never noticed it once.
Even today, I can’t tell you if onions or fish are frying in the pan or anything else for that matter. Currently I am taking cooking lessons at the Whitewater Bromley Community Health Centre in Beachburg. I don’t dare tell the chef about my condition – he might expel me from the class for wasting his time. I will continue with my plan to repeat periodically as he is cooking for us, “What a breathtaking aroma, Mr. Chef.”
One opportunity did slip by because of my nose. It was in first year in a technical college. I aced the chemistry exams and liked the lab work, so I spoke to the department head Mr. Ostergaarde about careers. Upon learning of my smelling disposition, he steered me in a totally different direction than chemistry. I realized much later that most jobs in that field wouldn’t have required me to whiff at all. If he was still alive today, I would tell him, that he deprived me of a lifestyle that I never got to know.
Many have told me that I don’t have taste buds because of not being able to smell. But I do have. I can distinguish the flavour’s of different berries I eat, especially if they are different colours.
I remember my first job in Toronto where I worked for Wellesley Hospital in the maintenance department as a Buyer. One of the workers had rotten stinking feet so bad that his mates went to their union about him. He had asked me once earlier, if his stinky feet bothered me. I had to be honest and say no. Our coy dispatcher often said to me when I was rushing around, “Bob, stop and smell the roses”. I didn’t know if there really were any roses or if she was teasing me because I couldn’t smell. Although I know, if you finish a job smelling like a rose, you have completed it successfully. That doesn’t always happen!
When in a group of people, someone inevitably passes gas, no doubt it’s because the average person does so between 10 and 20 times per day. If it was loud, I would know who, but for a silent one, I wouldn’t. I knew a guy that was so unbending, he used the term flatulence instead. I said that word sounded worse than one most people use beginning with a (f…). I too, found it interesting to learn that people find the smell of their own gas emission less offensive than others. Seems a little haughty to me!
I’m doing a little research into dog-sniffers. If I happened to get one, we would be an unusual pair but a great team. These particular dogs have been known to sniff out “Superbugs” in hospitals. If it so happened that by contracting ourselves out, we may even make enough to put a dent in the heating bills.
