Although this doesn’t happen as much as it used to when I was a kid, I have on occasion felt the need to pretend like I can smell.

Back in grade school and junior high, I’d have little moments of panic whenever someone made a big deal about smelling a fart. Even if I was totally innocent, I could be blamed and belittled for “letting one rip” only because I couldn’t smell it. As if not smelling a fart right away was an immediate sign of guilt.

I was thankful for rebuttals such as “Whoever smelt it dealt it;” however, when “Whoever made the rhyme did the crime” grew as a popular and undefeatable retort I again suffered the cruel adolescent taunts. And so, in the interest of social survival (I was never popular in school), I learned to pull my shirt up over my nose and complain with the rest of the “olfies.”

As an adult, there are still occasions when I pretend that I can smell. For example, when walking past a perfume counter in a department store I’m almost always asked to smell something. And explaining how I was born without a sense of smell is sometimes too time-consuming and exhausting. One time, I had a clerk become really offended when I told her I couldn’t smell. She thought I was lying just to get away from her. She yelled at me! And so, for shopping days when I just want to get what I came for and leave, I pretend to smell whatever the clerk places in front of me, tell them the fragrance is nice but too “colorful” for my taste (or awful, depending on my mood), and walk away. Most of the time though, I just avoid walking past that particular counter.