There were a lot of aspects of my childhood that were strangely affected by not being able to smell and over the life of this blog I intend to disclose every single one of them to (1) enlighten the rest of the population, and (2) alleviate some of the personal trauma and/or anxieties accrued from those experiences.
Like many children, growing up I would phase in and out of little “hobbies.” One hobby though had a life of about five years…collecting stickers.
I loved stickers! Wait…let me rephrase that…I still love stickers! That was one of the best perks about being a teacher; I had the best excuse for still buying stickers as an adult. No one ever questioned it! Heck, people would give me stickers as presents saying “I figured you could use them in your classroom.” And I’d be like, “Yeah…classroom…that’s what I’ll use them for…” only I’d keep them (at least the really cool ones).
But I digress…
Now I had a very impressive collection, which meant I had friends who would come over to my house to admire my collection. And growing up in the 80s, by the way, there was a particular type of sticker that was very very popular and any person who collected stickers, who was truly a “collector,” simply had to have these stickers: scratch ‘n sniff stickers.
Man, those things would just piss me off! You see, I didn’t actually know I couldn’t smell at that point (which is very common among anosmics). Most people know they are disabled because someone tells them they are. But smell is a strange and private sense [but that’s another blog]. Anyway, other neighborhood kids would admire my collection, pick up a scratch ‘n sniff sticker, scratch it, SMELL IT, and go “Ooooo, this smells just like popcorn,” or “Wow, this smells just like cotton candy!”
And of course, after they’d leave I’d spend HOURS scratching and scratching trying to smell anything, wearing them down to thin and flaking balls of paper! But, of course, nothing! Nada! Zip! But that didn’t stop me from trying. I’d scratch the sticker, sniff, then pull the sticker away from nose, and sniff again trying to compare the difference in the air. Never anything!
I secretly hated those stickers! But of course collected them anyway.
- Jun 13, 04:04 PM
- 2 Comments
- Previous Article
- Next Article
1 · Janet · Jun 20, 04:27 PM
To be honest, scratch and sniff stickers weren’t as great at you might think. The scents often mingled together if the stickers were left together. I remember my bookbag used to smell like a cacophony of all possible vegetables, flowers, candy, dirt, and animals that were ever put on a sticker. (Pickles and chocolate are not a good combination, nor is cake and dirt or skunk and vanilla.) It was nast-y.
2 · Blindsquirrel · Dec 4, 07:44 PM
I too have a memory of Scratch-and-Sniff stickers. One from an age of at least five, but no older than six or seven years old. I had a bubble gum sticker and I remember sniffing it and saying to myself, “Yummy.” Of course, I may have just been imagining that I could smell it, because other kids had said the same thing.
Like you, I assume that I was born without a sense of smell, because I never remember having smelled ANYTHING (I don’t count that sticker, because I don’t actually remember smelling it, just saying the words).
My mother thinks that a car accident in which my nose was busted pretty badly, around that same age, may have been the cause of my anosmia. I’m not convinced of that…but who knows?