Senseless (Part Two)

(See Previous Blog Entry for Part One)

One day, while working at my father’s electrical shop, my maniacal, brain-damaged brother approached me with a plastic jug that contained a clear liquid (well, mostly clear... it had plenty of visible bacteria particles floating in it to make it appear quite rancid and scary).

He held it up to me and made the following proclamation: “Man, this is wild! You have got to smell this! This is the worst-smelling water in the history of water. It is nasty!”

Well, how could I resist such a tempting offer?

He also warned me to take a big whiff of it in order to get the full effect, which I did, because I was just that smart.

Immediately, I clutched my head in a spastic fit of fury. I was quite sure that my nostrils and brain had simultaneously burst into flames (Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” depicts EXACTLY how I felt). I suffered thousands of seizures on the ground over the next 60 minutes or so and was convinced that I had snorted a pound of wet cement somehow.

If I had to describe the scent of it, I would go with “hot, painful death.” Yes. Hot, painful death was the last thing I smelled with a 100% working whiffer.

The Sense Police had struck (stealthily and invisibly) and I was the newly throned King of Pain. Damn you, Mr. Sting, and your spiky dirty blonde hair! Why don't you go help Tibet some more and leave me the Hell alone?

Ahem. Anyway, since that day I’ve never been able to smell particularly well (Oh, grow up -- you know what I mean). I never told my parents about The Ammonia Incident (thus I also didn't see a doctor) for fear of being grounded for a decade, or at the very least, being subjected to a barrage of scorn, ridicule and hysterical laughter. However, I did notice a steep decline in my sense of smell from that day on.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been with a large group of people who all gasped at how bad something smelled and I could only hope it wasn’t me.

Oftentimes I try to cover things up with a lie and a bout of bad acting: “Egad. One inhale of yonder scent and I feel as though The Devil himself has swarmed through my nasal cavities with malicious and odious intent!”

When I was younger, I actually stopped being bothered by cigarette smoke (unless I breathed it in directly) and I no longer enjoyed the savory scents of my favorite foods. I never considered it a tragedy, though, especially since I found myself able to eat intensely hot and spicy foods as my friends looked on with disbelieving envy.

As far as I know, there is no support group for people with non-working noses, so I never applied for my handicapped parking sticker.

Oddly enough, my sense of smell seems to have returned back slowly over time to the point where now I can smell most things again, although, to a much lesser degree than those around me. (Yay, bad smells stink again!)

In the end, the whole sordid affair left me with an important moral to always remember: The Sense Police are very, very real, so be careful when choosing a sense you deem to be less important than the others. Be sure to listen for their unholy squad car siren at all times. It goes: De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da. That's all I'm going to say to you.

Except for one additional bit: if your older brother ever approaches you with an unnamed chemical and asks you to smell it, feel free to kick him in the jimmy and run like Hell.

Senseless (Part One)

I am sure it’s one of those silly questions that every healthy adolescent in the universe asks themselves for no particular reason: If you had to give up one of your five senses, which would it be?

I asked myself that question entirely too often.

Now, I don’t mean to sound insensitive to those who were not born with all five senses, or have lost one along the way, but I think it’s a question that more fortunate kids ponder at some point. It’s almost as if we fear we don't deserve to be so lucky. Thus, the Sense Police will show up at our doorstep one day and say, “OK, which one can we take away from you?”

I gave the matter considerable thought mainly because I was just THAT paranoid about the Sense Police. I was also reasonably certain that they were headed by the scariest rock star of all time: Sting. (Tell me he isn't planning Armageddon in that picture. Don't stand so close to me, indeed.)

Anyway, it was always a simple matter to pick two senses that I would never give up (provided I had any kind of choice in the matter): sight and sound.

The idea of never being able to see an attractive scantily-clad woman, or even the next issue of The Amazing Spider-Man seemed like a foreign concept to the pre-teen version of me. And, of course, hearing may have been even more important because I couldn’t imagine being unable to enjoy side one of Led Zeppelin IV again. No more Dylan or Beatles? No more Haircut 100 or April Wine (well, that isn’t so much of a priority anymore, but you get the point). Such a fate would be unimaginably horrible.

Picking two more keepers required me to break the issue down by its details. How important was touch? The thought that always clinched the sense of touch as paramount was the memory of stealing second base on Hannah Hotchest in the sweet, blessed darkness of my hometown movie theater. (In case you didn’t notice, I used a fake name to protect the poor woman’s identity from the 14 people who read this blog.)

Thus, the decision always came down to the final two senses: taste and smell, which are very similar in a way. My first thought was, of course, food. I could never eat another Chocodile, Fun-Yun, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or Slurpee (which is more like rocket fuel than a source of nutrition) with any gusto whatsoever! No #^@#ing way!

So, I always came down to the same conclusion: Who the Hell needs a sense of smell? My reasoning was simple: in such an event I could still probably taste food (though not as intensely), but I didn’t need to smell it. After all, the sense of smell does have a dark side, as we all know.

In fact, if I found myself without a functioning snout, one of my greatest fears in the known universe would cease to exist: public men’s restrooms.

Female readers cannot appreciate how devoid of decency such places can be. Put it this way, I would rather stroll through the gates of Hell, or the scariest cemetery in a galaxy full of blood-sucking zombies and fiendish snake creatures brandishing multiple spidery legs and thousands of razor-sharp fangs, than to set foot in a public men’s restroom.

When you walk into one, you immediately want to gouge your eyes out. Why? Because flushing is not a foregone conclusion in these hellholes. Seriously.

Still, I can live with such terrible sights because I can always avert my gaze. You cannot, however, aim for the porcelain target and plug your nose at the same time, which succinctly explains how this vile vicious circle came about in the first place.

If you are still reading after the previous paragraph, I would recommend that you seek professional help. I know I will.

Now, let’s rewind a bit to the numerous times I wished The Sense Police would simply take my sense of smell if they ever made a house call. Well, I had no idea that such thoughts would one day cause a hypothetical scenario to become reality. I kid you not.

After years of being confident that the sense of smell was the one to sacrifice, I had The Ammonia Incident and my olfactory abilities were never the same again.

Given, it was my older brother’s fault mostly (he, no doubt, worked part-time for The Sense Police), and I suppose my rampant stupidity supplied the rest of the blame.


To Be Continued Tomorrow...