I can feel my superpower is fading…
A few days ago, I realised I was experiencing a late-onset symptom of COVID. My senses of taste and smell had been working fine, but then one morning I put on some perfume…
…and some more…
…and a bit more…
…and then it dawned on me it wasn’t my perfume bottle misfiring, but I simply couldn’t smell anything.
It’s so weird when you can breathe but can’t smell.
It’s very different from loss of smell due to having a blocked nose. You get a strange sense of disconnect to your surroundings.
When I got out of the isolation period, Kev and I checked out venues to hold an event at, and we visited a hotel function room that had been used for a wedding party the night before.
“They really should’ve aired that room,” Kev said, “Could you smell all the stale beer, disinfectant and body odour? Ugh. Typical morning after smell…”
“Errr..no. Can’t smell bugger all…” I reminded him. The room looked beautifully fresh and clean to me, and until that point I assumed it smelt good, too. I was very pleased I hadn’t had to breathe in sweaty beer smells.
That evening, I felt even more pleased to have the superpower of odour-immunity.
Eddie had taken it upon himself to entertain us with one of his nose-melting Festival of Farts.
Usually on such occasions, Kev and I will be deeply absorbed in a drama on TV, and one of us will detect a gag-inducing air biscuit and alert the other by shouting, “Oh, EDDIE!” and we’ll both grab a blanket and breathe through it until the danger has passed.
Suddenly, Kev shouted “Jesus Christ, Eddie!” and looked like he was struggling to breathe, even through the blanket.
I inhaled - tentatively at first - then deeply.
Holy. Moly.
It felt like a superpower - like I had just learned how to breathe underwater or something.
I watched Kev writhe in revulsion next to me, and I felt like a complete badass that I was able to breathe deeply and freely in the midst of the toxic gas cloud.
I felt like standing on a huge heap of landfill waste in a superhero cape and announcing, “I am fearless in the face of filthy nappies and rotting chicken! I can unblock the foulest of drains without holding my breath. I laugh in the face of Glastonbury portaloos! No smell on earth can faze me!”
Talk about every cloud having a silver lining! If ever there was an opportunity to reframe what some might see as a disadvantage, it was this.
However, I think I’m beginning to get a faint sense of smell back. I caught a whiff of Kev’s fragrance in the air earlier, and so it feels bittersweet that my superpower seems to be fading.
I’m going to love smelling and tasting most things again, but I’ll sure miss it when Ed cleaves the Camembert of an evening.
If you’re one of the unfortunate people to get caught in what appears to be a summer wave of COVID, make sure you make the most of the unusual fringe benefits!