The other day, when my husband bought the new T-Mobile G1 phone, he turned to me in the store and said, “Heather, you should know that this phone has a new phone smell to it.” The sales guy jumped in and said, “Oh that’ll go away,” presuming that I didn’t like the “new factory smell” or something. And then we felt that we had to explain that I didn’t have a sense of smell. And any anosmic can probably predict his reaction:

Hahaha…wait…are you serious?
Yes, I was born without a sense of smell.
Seriously?
Seriously.
Wait. So that means you can’t taste either.
Actually smell only affects part of taste. I can taste the basics: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, yadda yadda yadda. I can’t taste individual distinct flavors though.
So, can you taste stuff like rosemary?
Nope. In fact you could blindfold me and make me bite into a garlic clove and I wouldn’t know if I was eating garlic or not.
Dude…that’s freaky.
Yeah. I’m a regular circus geek. Why don’t you hand me a chicken and I’ll bite off its head.

Okay, I didn’t say that last part. But wouldn’t it have been fun to say?