I Could Be Your Smell Detective
June 13th, 2006
The world is full of smells.
That’s why when I’m sitting around with you and your friends in the living room or at the cafe or around back that coffee shop we frequent and a strange smell wafts through the air… I’ll be there to get to the bottom of the situation. No, there won’t be any false alarm sniffs or snorts or smells… No, there won’t be any sloppy smell work. Yes, there will be a solution to the mysterious problem at hand…
That’s because I could be your smell detective…the most perceptive detective on the face of the Earth.
I just have to say that as your smell detective, I would often just have to laugh to myself when I was in the company of amateur smell detectives. You know the type. You’re sitting around somewhere and then one of these amateurs stands up and announces, “I smell a smell!” Then everyone around this wannabe waft-discoverer looks around and sniffs themselves. “You don’t smell that?” asks the amateur smell detective. “Really? Because it’s as thick as pea soup to this sensitive nose sniffer.”
Poor amateur smell detective. It’s sad, really.
As your smell detective (and a professional & subtle one at that), I would follow the advice of many famous detectives throughout history. Like Sherlock Holmes, who once said, “evidence is not evidence until you have the evidence in your hands!” I would treat strange smells the same way. While I might smell a smell, I will never report such a smell to you until I have that smell in my hands (i.e., I’ve found the source of the smell). For what good does it do any of us for me to announce the world is going to end unless I have a concrete way to save us all?
As your smell detective, I bring order to the odiferous madness.
You won’t hear any tired-old smell-related phrases coming from this smell detective’s mouth. No, when I smell a smell I won’t be shouting things like, “this nose, KNOWS!” or “this smell is Hell!” or “I thinkest therest be-ist a smell-ist near-ist by-ist!”
No, there will be no Shakespearian smelling going on with me.
That’s because as your smell detective my job is to get to the bottom of smells and nothing more. There’s no need for theatrical smell-locationing. There’s no necessity for face & nose mugging. There will never be a moment where I will hold my nose high up in the sky and proclaim, “my nose is so much better than your nose and that’s why I’m the one getting paid the big bucks for finding the origins of smells and why you’re working day in and day out at the local Rite Aid Pharmacy.”
No, I don’t roll like that.
So when trying to decide whether or not to go with a smell detective or an amateur smell-finder wannabe, know that there are many options at your disposal. But know that there is only one solution and one person who can really do the job the way it was meant to be done.
And that’s me.
Your smell detective.
After reading your blog for quite some time now, I have come to the conclusion that you have very odd friends and enemies. Associates in general. I cannot quite relate to the described situations in which smell-finder wannaba tortures the conversation, because funnily enough, it appears I live in an area where they have not begun to breed yet.
Comment by Janet — June 13, 2006 @ 8:14 am
Janet - I find it extremely hard to believe that you have never been sitting around and one of these amateur smell detectives goes, “Do you smell that? Something smells weird!” and then they proceed to walk around the room smelling things?
Unless you live with the Amish.
Comment by Pauly D — June 13, 2006 @ 8:58 am
I was at my grandmother’s house one afternoon when I declared, “I smell sausage bread.” Of course, no one else smelled it so everyone thought I was insane.
A little while later I announced. “No, really, I smell sausage bread.” They ignored me.
About an hour after that, my aunt dropped by to visit with a gift of . . . yup, you got it . . . sausage bread.
So, Pauly, do you need a sidekick?
Comment by Rabbit — June 13, 2006 @ 9:28 am
hmm…smell…coffee…same post…close enough pauly…
i have something for you to smell
Comment by wendi — June 13, 2006 @ 9:28 am
Heh…My house smells like diapers. Dirty ones…wanna come over?
Comment by Amy — June 13, 2006 @ 10:06 am
Does a Smell Detective charge by the hour or by the smell?
Comment by Syd — June 13, 2006 @ 10:28 am
it is people like you that get me all paranoid and changing the cat litter and disinfecting the entire bathroom (where the cat box is) twice a week out of fear that someone will walk in, take a wiff, and say, “you have a cat, huh?”
Comment by ACG — June 13, 2006 @ 11:27 am
I have long ago given up saying, “Does anyone smell that smell?” because 1) they never admit to smelling the smell and 2) they do not care to investigate until the smell is in hand. I, however, am a compulsive, cannot-rest-until-I-have-solved-the-smell-crime type.
Comment by susan — June 13, 2006 @ 11:41 am
Syd - Look, I’m not out to screw anyone over. I totally charge by the smell and not the hour.
Comment by Pauly D — June 13, 2006 @ 11:47 am
As a Star Trek fan, I’ve always wondered about something and I think you are the only one who can answer this: is there smell in a black hole?
Comment by Neil — June 13, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
Accurate smelling is an art. For those of us who have the “gift”
and come by it naturally, it seems ’second nature’. For those who
do not have it……be patient…..it can be learned. It comes by
being aware of smells and training yourself to associate the smell
when you first smell something and posting that smell in your mind. It is much like teaching yourself to remember people’s
names. Word association is extremely important when learning
another skill. Smelling is just another skill, learned.
Comment by Barney — June 13, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
Thats cool, because you know sometimes “smells” don’t show up for days.
Comment by Syd — June 14, 2006 @ 3:20 am
Haha! Around my house, my dad and I are the “smellers” (not the “smellies”–those are my brothers). Whenever I catch a whiff of something, identify it, and after everyone else finally gets it, Mom (who has a horrible sense of smell) always says “Anne’s nose knows!” Cheesy, sure. (Limburger. Even my Mom can smell that, I think.)
Comment by Anne — June 14, 2006 @ 6:52 am
There is an old saying of which has generally stood up to time; If your the smeller your the feller.
Comment by Syd — June 14, 2006 @ 10:20 am
My sense of smell is like a hound-dog. It’s a gift but also a nagging curse because I can smell people’s personal body odors when they pass by me on the streets. And if they are wearing parfume or cologne, I can tell if it mixes correctly with their chemistry or not. Too much information for me, too personal, but I can’t help it
Comment by Dawn T Alston — February 21, 2007 @ 9:16 am