Marmee Nose Best?

I'm anosmic. I have no sense of smell. I've never had any sense of smell, ever. Its congenital, I was born that way. For me the world of smells just doesn't exist. Period.

But my own mother has never quite believed it. I'm sure she thinks its some childhood prank that's carried on for a bit too long. I gave her some flowers once and she said, "Oh they smell lovely don't they."

"I don't know, mom."

"Here, smell them," she insisted.

"I can't smell, remember?"

"Oh, still not?"

"No, mom, but any day now." Tsk.

My mother buys me aromatherapy sets as presents, I suspect to try and catch me out.

"Nice colour," I tell her.

"What about the smell?"

"What about it?"

"Do you like it?"

"Well if Hubs sniffs my neck after a bath and smiles, I'll assume it's nice. If he collapses in a dead faint, probably best to avoid it in future."

Or my mother will suddenly gasp, "You're wearing perfume! I thought you said you couldn't smell!"

"Hubs bought it for me," I say, "It could be Au de Poo for all I know and he's just trying to keep other men away."

"Get a real Christmas tree this year," my mother said recently, "They smell so nice."

Honestly, you could craft a Crimbo tree from cow manure and I wouldn't know the difference.

"She really can't smell," Hubs often tells her. "Trust me, some of the stuff I've let off in bed, any normal woman would have killed me a long time ago."

"What do you mean, any normal woman?" I ask.

We went out for a pub lunch yesterday. As we got out of the car, famished and frozen, my mother said, "Oh you can smell the food can't you."

"No," I laughed.

"Oh yes," she said, suspiciously, "You can't smell can you."

"No, mom."

"Maybe when you give up smoking you'll be able to smell again."

"I've never been able to smell, mom."

"Haven't you?" she asked, like this was something new she'd never heard before.

"No, mom."

"I don't remember you ever mentioning that you couldn't smell when you were little."

"Well I clearly remember telling you when I was about seven or eight," I said, "And you didn't believe me then either."

"Oh it's not that I don't believe you," Marmee said, half-heartedly.

"What is it then?" I asked, "Do you think I've been lying for the last thirty-odd years?"

"Maybe you just don't have a very good sense of smell."

"I have zero sense of smell, mom."

"Maybe if you tried harder."

I don't know what it is that makes my mother question my veracity. It's not like I'm claiming to have seen the face of the Virgin Mary in my soap or declared that I'm being abducted by aliens on a regular basis. Maybe she's disappointed to have produced an offspring with fewer than average senses, who knows.

All I know is that my Own Mother doesn't believe me.

Sniff.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: There rest of time.