Looking Bionic

I am from the era of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. My father watched those shows religiously and I watched along with him. As much as I would have loved to be bionic the method of becoming was destressingly brutal. No one wants to crash an aircraft or have a failed parachute jump. I do however have a bionic nose. I can smell things from a great distance. I can distinguish aromas and determine location and origins of smells. It is my super power. No one wants to believe me. Sparky doesn’t want to believe. Sparky now believes.

It was a normal weekend way back in 1997. I was in the basement folding laundry. Suddenly my nose detected an unpleasant smell. I immediately recognized this as the smell of natural gas. I bolted upstairs and got Sparky’s attention alerting him to the presence of gas. His reaction was to mosey to the basement, sniff around and proclaim, “I don’t smell anything. You are imagining it.” I went back down but I had acclimated and could nolonger detect the gas. This smell persisted and I contacted Sparky’s parents. His mother came over and confirmed that I was really smelling gas. She called the gas company and they found a pinhole leak. It was corrected. “I told you so.”

This was not the first time I had employed the bionic nose. I had had 2 children in diapers at the same time. I could tell which one was poopy from the next room. I could tell which kid had eaten my chocolate stash from across the room with my eyes closed. I knew. We got a dog. I knew when he had an intestinal upset, when he needed his rearend cleaned off, when he had rolled in something nasty or chewed on something rotten – I could smell him at 40 paces. But Sparky had difficulty believing me until I made him check. I was always right. “I told you so.”

So last week I came downstairs in the morning having just rolled out of bed. I walked down and before even getting to the kitchen I smelled it. “What is that awful smell?” I queried Sparky. He shook his head and asked what I was smelling now – since he didn’t detect anything in the air. I said it smelled like sulfur. “Oh, yeah. I made some hard boiled eggs and 2 cracked.” Opening the refrigerator I was smacked in the face with the smell of over cooked eggs. Hmm.

Then it happened. I walked downstairs again first thing in the morning (it was a Thursday) and we were heading to get some groceries. “What smells like wet dog?” I sniffed around and stated that it seemed to be coming from the basement. Sparky pooh-poohed me. He couldn’t smell it. I insisted he go to the basement to see if there was a leak. I’m not sure what he did but he didn’t investigate very thoroughly. We went shopping. We washed the groceries and disinfected packages. I had a stack of items to be put in storage (mostly to replenish stock we had used up during the first 10 weeks of the shutdown). He goes down the stairs and starts squawking. Seems the sump pump failed and there was a good inch of standing water in the basement. The area where we store seasonal items, mostly Christmas stuff, is the dog run. For 15 years that was Rangers “safe” spot. Even though we vacuumed and wiped it down after he was gone, we still find dog hair in corners… So the wet dog smell was real, the wood was wet and a bunch of hidden dog hair was floating around. The laundry room rug was destroyed. I never said, “I told you so.” Because I didn’t have to. He said it. He said, “Go ahead and say it, say ‘I told you so’.”

I refused to rub it in. I am instead insisting on a new rug, a back-up sump pump, and a promise that the next time I smell something he will believe me!

EDIT: Obviously I can’t read a calendar. This was supposed to have been posted on Monday the 13th but I goofed and scheduled it for Sunday. So I made the correction but not before a couple comments were generated! *slaps forehead* Anyway hope your weekend was scent free!