I Know How I Will Probably Die

I have anosmia, which means I have no sense of smell.


I do not have animism, which spell check thinks I meant to say. Frankly I am insulted that blogspot refuses to recognize my affliction.


Before you ask me any questions about this. Here is the conversation I have to have at some point with everyone I know.


Person: Hey smell this (Offering to generously share their wonderful experience with me)

Me: Oh.... no it's ok I can't smell

Person: (assuming I simply have a cold or something) Oh no go on it's quite strong

Me: No I mean I don't have a sense of smell.... at all.... I can't smell

Person: (Person has never encountered this scenario before. Person is confused) What? At all?

Me: That's right

Person: (tries to imagine how such a thing would work) So..... when you breath in.... there's just.... no smell?

Me: Exactly

Person: (Person figures that I have probably just forgotten about some things that I can smell and decides to run through them) But what about like... cut grass?

Me: Nope. Can't smell that

Person: So you've never smelled bacon?

Me: ........No

Person: So if I farted... You wouldn't know would you?

Me: Sadly no.... It's a cruel world

Person: (Person smiles thinking of the freedom they now have) So even like..... really smelly things.... like a rotten egg.... with poo on it... and bad breath.... and it lives on a farm.... and the farm is also made of poo?

Me: Is that a smell?

Person: ........Yes?

Me: Then no


That is roughly how the conversation goes. I have been through that routine enough times that I am contemplating recording my answers on to a dictaphone so that I can play them back and save the effort of actually speaking. Even my close friends often forget that I lack this. This has resulted in the 'Harry-has-no-smell' stare when they offer me something to smell, this can take a number of minutes until the aforementioned friend realizes their mistake.


I don't know why people feel that not being able to smell surely doesn't include particular items. If someone told me they were blind (slightly easier to notice) I wouldn't question whether he was able to see a tree.... or the sun. You certainly wouldn't forget that they are blind! Maybe its the glasses... perhaps I will fashion a special anosmia nose-clip so that I can be easily identified.


But no. I have no sense of smell, never have. To be fair it is probably the easiest sense to live without. Except maybe for the 6th sense.... that's probably harder to live with.


As the title of the post suggests, I think this is probably going to be a factor in how I die. Experiences over the years have made me realize that there are certain things that it would really help to be able to smell. Namely gas, burning things, and food that has gone bad.


My nightmare scenario is when I try to turn on the oven, I can hear the gas coming out, I am holding down the make-gas-become-fire-sparky-click-button (an oven ignition?... that makes it sounds like the oven belongs to NASA) and it is yet to make the gas become fire. Then I reach a critical terrifying moment.... I know that I have made gas come out (LOL) ..... but I cannot smell the gas..... for all I know I have left it on so long that the gas is now all around me! ..... and if I were to press the sparky button again then I would be engulfed in flames. A great big screaming anosmic fireball and the only upside would be that I cannot smell myself. So what I usually do at this critical point is turn the gas off out of fear. Then I open some windows and start wafting a towel near the open oven. After I have left it about half an hour, or less if desperate hunger and need for fish fingers overpowers my fear. I assume that the air is now non-flammable enough to try again.


Even once the treacherous hurdle of turning the oven on has been passed, I am not out of the woods.


You would think that my increased risk of burning to death would make me more cautious when it comes to cooking my food with fire. But you would be wrong. Like many people I am prone to distraction. Once the food is cooking and my eyes rest upon my TV screen I quickly forget that I had any food steadily increasing in temperature and ash content. If the oven cared at all for my disability and desire for well cooked fish fingers then it would oblige by turning itself off and blowing on my fish fingers for me to save me the effort. But the oven does not do this, which only raises my suspicion that all ovens are maniacal killing machines that want me and my fish fingers dead.

The following is a depiction of events that have happened at least 3 times.

Luckily for me I usually live with other people who can put an end to events before they reach the 'Harry-is-sat-watching-TV-surrounded-by-a-wall-of-smoke-and-fire' stage.


Nonetheless the oven is bound to win one day. It's kind of a blessing knowing how you will die I suppose. It gives me the opportunity to avoid it, and all I have to do is avoid my oven for the foreseeable future.


But I really really like fish fingers...


P.S. People always bring up things they can smell that makes absolutely no sense to me. Like rain... how the hell does rain have a smell? Isn't that just the smell of water? So your glass of water would smell like rain?.... People with a sense of smell are confusing