Why can’t I smell THAT? Science says guys’ noses don’t know
By Burton W. Cole,
I don’t smell so good.
Oops, grammar, Burt. I meant to say that I don’t smell very well. Science says so. The male nose typically is far less efficient than the female nose. So we win.
Aromatic ignorance helped me survive a male collegiate dorm, and when I grew up to have dogs, cats and kids, I saw no reason to educate my nostrils.
My wife argues that her keen sense of scent could save our lives by detecting hot smells ready to burst into flames. She’s sent me on scent hunts plenty of times, especially in the middle of the night. I am reduced to begging for hints.
“What do you mean where? Follow your nose!”
My nose, being sensible, leads me back to bed. In my defense, we’ve never had the fire.
Once, my wife gagged when she caught me using the same bath towel for the 37th shower in a row. “Can’t you smell anything?” she gasped.
I buried my nose in the damp folds and inhaled. “Root beer?”
She snatched towel out of my hands, but didn’t inhale.
Researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil discovered that women’s olfactory centers are gunked up with 43 percent more cells and almost 50 percent more neurons than what guys pack.
My buddy Daryl backed that up with a study published in Reader’s Digest, our favorite medical journal, that states that the male olfactory nerves cannot detect some scents.
A good, solid smell — such as an egg salad and bologna sandwich left behind the couch for three weeks — consists of many different odors all packaged into one, high-impact punch in the snout.
Science proves that woman can pretty much distinguish between every single layer of those stenches, like a gourmet of the odiferous. Men’s senses can’t do this. It’s all one, big happy whiff of stink to us. And after our brains — like a cranial can of Febreze — eliminate the portions that are unpleasant to us, whatever remains can be quite the bouquet.
Exhibit A is Daryl himself. He enjoys the smell of skunk. I am not kidding. When we ride past a squished skunk, I plug my nose, but Daryl inhales deeply. I might be a guy, but my desensitivity doesn’t work that well.
I don’t recommend seeking Daryl’s opinion on after-shave.
But I understand the theory since I am partial to the sweet aroma of silage and dairy barns. I greedily snuffle the fragrance of dairy farm, savoring memories of childhood growing up in the country. It’s a beautiful — but not a joy shared by my wife.
“Doesn’t it frustrate you to know that your nose doesn’t work?”
Nope. It’s why I’m more easy-going than she is — reek doesn’t ruin my day. Outside of hot fudge and a fresh can of Play-Doh, there’s not all that much that’s worth smelling anyway.
One night, I returned home at 1 a.m. from an extra-innings baseball game. A wafting scent grabbed my interest. I searched the house until I found a roast in the refrigerator and conquered it. Then I went to bed.
It turned out that my sweetie had been up late doing laundry and that last load with its spring-fresh dryer sheet finished its spin not too many minutes before I walked in.
She reported this to a friend the next day. The friend, also female and married, sighed. “He could smell roast inside a closed refrigerator but couldn’t smell fresh laundry that needed folding.”
This goes back to the male sniff principle. Men don’t notice unpleasant smells. Laundry smells like work. Work is unpleasant. What other scientifically fragrant proof is necessary?
Sniff out Burt at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or at www.burtonwcole.com.