A Rose by Any Other Name Still Smells Better Than Cat Puke

Is it just me or do all moms test far too many things with their noses throughout the course of the day? Just yesterday I sniffed at the milk to see if it had turned, checked some bed sheets to see if I could smell pee, followed a nasty trail to the basement where our cat had gotten sick, sniffed through a pile of clothes to see if they were dirty, and tracked down my son’s moldy snow boots. (Picture me, the ginormous nose with a Sherlock Holmes cap on top…)

Was it pregnancy that heightened my sense of smell? I can root out the one poopy child in a room of twenty. I can find that one (okay, maybe two...all right...three!) rotten Tupperware containers at the back of my frig. I can walk into a room and within seconds drop to my knees in search of an accosting odor. (This superpower only seems to have two loopholes: one, all raw meat smells bad to me, and two, I cannot find whatever has crawled into the back of my minivan to die, regardless of two excavations and countless Lysol interventions).

I just wonder why I continue to bring suspicious item after suspicious item under my nose to smell it? If it’s suspicious in the first place, shouldn’t I keep it away from my face? If the underpants MAY smell like pee, isn’t it worth the extra detergent to forgo the sniff test?

You know, I learned this from my mother. But at least I didn’t acquire my father’s talent. The Taster. I know, that sounds much more appealing than The Sniffer, but imagine if you will the following conversation from my youth:

Mom: [smelling the milk] Ralph, will you taste this? It smells bad.
Dad: [Drinking the milk.] Yep. It’s bad.

That’s my dad. Keeping the rest of us safe from the sour milk of the world. Me? I’m just exercising the soiled sheets and cat puke from my house.

It’s a tough job. But somebody’s gotta smell it (hahahaha. Get it? I crack myself up sometimes…)