I have a keen sense of smell.  If that were a super power it would suck!  The world is full of smells, but you really notice the unpleasant ones most often.  My husband has fantastic hearing.  He can hear a new can of tennis balls being opened over a block away.  Super sonic hearing is a great super hero power.  I can smell milk going bad three rooms away.  Not good!

I found out a long time ago that I had better than average olfactory senses.  For the first forty-three years of my life, I could only breathe out of one side of my nose.  A birth defect had left me completely blocked on the left side.  Much like that old adage, when one sense goes bad another improves, well my one nostril could sniff things out like a bloodhound.  Case in point: a very long time ago when the children were small I kept smelling gas.  Not petroleum, but natural gas.  This was in the summer and the heat wasn’t on and no one could smell anything but me.  I kept complaining, I kept being told I was crazy.  I was smelling my upper lip and such nonsense.  Finally, I called the gas company and they sent someone to check the line.  The repair person found a minuscule leak in the line that was leaking gas.   That is but one of many episodes of my nifty nose’s natural ability to pick up scents.  I have sniffed out lots of mold, things that should have been thrown out and weren’t, leftovers that were left over a little too long, and most recently a water leak under our sink.  Then a new stink slithered into town.

I began complaining a little over a week ago.  That’s not news.  I told my husband I was smelling something that was somewhere between soured milk and a rotten potato.  He didn’t smell it.  I smelled it when I walked in the utility room.  Now there is a lot of stinkiness that goes on as you head toward the utility room.  That’s close to the dishwasher, refrigerator, laundry (post-golf), trash compactor, recycling bins, and garage.  I sniffed as closely as I dared to as many things as I dared.  Nothing.  I bought new boxes of baking soda just in case and cleaned the garbage disposal, put a fresh box in the refrigerator, and freezer.  Nothing.  I plugged in new plug ins.  Now I had floral scented soured milk and rotten potatoes.  Yummy!  I thought maybe the precious had spilled his yogurt on the floor, why I would think such a thing is beyond me, but I bleached the tile floors.  The cacophony of smells spinning around in my nose was beginning to give me a headache.  I had used the last of the bleach and after I rinsed the bottle out I went to put it in the recycling bin and when I opened the lid on the plastics container I almost threw up.  Someone (my husband) who shall remain nameless (my husband) put a milk container in the recycling without rinsing it out.  I don’t know how long it had been there, but I was going to rinse it out and I couldn’t.  I think it was butter at this point.  I took yet another box of baking soda and put it in the trash with the milk container which I moved from the recycling to the regular trash.  I felt a little sorry for the rest of the trash having to smell this nastiness, but I took it outside pretty quickly.  At least I don’t have to smell it.

I wish people would listen to me when I say something smells.  I am rarely wrong.  I tell my husband I smell something and he waits until two weeks later when its really rancid then he says “Oh my God, what smells?”  Sometimes I have to resist the urge to punch him.  However; if there is a dirty diaper anywhere in this house he knows it.  He knows its in here and he wants it out and he wants nothing to do with any of the aforementioned actions.  I think that’s funny.  Not that I enjoy the smell of dirty diapers, I don’t, I do however enjoy his reaction to them.  It’s good fun!  I guess I should just be glad that sense wise I have something spectacular.  If your cat ever needs to find its litter box, give me a call.  If you have a smell you just can’t locate, I’m your girl.  Just don’t argue with me about what it is or that there is in fact an odor.  In fact, if I’m ever with you and you see me wiggling my nose, getting restless, and looking around for something chances are I’ve locked in on something.  It’s best just to leave me to my work.  We super heroes get cranky when you people interfere.