They say that a shark can smell prey from as far away as 2 miles. 2 miles away? Please, a mother's sense of smell can put the shark to shame. I can smell a dog going to the bathroom before he even thinks about it.
I'm upstairs in a room farthest from the kitchen. Still, I stop, sniff the air then yell “Whoever is making the Pop Tart, it's burning!” I hear the patter of little feet then a “Oh man!”
A mother can smell her own child's diaper from the other side of the playground. We're over there checking the diaper even before their friends leave them alone in the sandbox. I've been known on the playground to walk behind the children checking my nose just to make sure it's not mine that's created the black cloud over the sandbox. When it is my child I can move faster than a running back when it comes to catching them before they decide to slide down the slide. Any mother knows that catching them before they sit down not only makes their life easier but ours A LOT easier.
Today is no exception. There's been a storm brewing at the house. The slight smell nagging for a few days is slowly starting to take the house over. Sure I spent a day walking around the house sniffing the air trying to find the culprit but it's eluded the super nose. This morning I am determined to find the source. I start at one edge of the kitchen walking and smelling like a CSI technician working a crime scene. My husband watches my nose travel inside the pantry, over behind the garbage, around the dog bowls.
“What are you doing, Inspector Clouseau?” He asks.
“You don't smell that?”
“What?” My husband's sense of smell has not evolved as far as mine. I think it's part of this evolution that we smell better, we have to catch that toddler, we have to find those sippy cups full of milk before the CDC comes knocking at our door. Maybe husbands have the sense of smell but refuse to acknowledge the gift because they can't accept the responsibility that comes with it. Responsibility for diapers, dog poop, fermenting lunches, or even the “I'm done” coming from a small child out of the bathroom.
So I ignore him and continue on my hunt to show how the power of my nose. I line up the children and walk around them sniffing making sure they didn't have any type of hidden assets I wasn't aware of. Everyone checks out clean so I move over to the refrigerator a usual culprit in the battle of smells.
“Aha! The nose always knows!” I exclaim as I find a brown paper bag sitting on top of the refrigerator. “What is this!”
“I have no idea.” He says. “A lunch?”
“OK, who's lunch?”
“Maybe yours.”
“You guys have to be more responsible about food around the house.” I start lecturing to everyone in the room. “It's stuff like this that attracts bugs and mice! How can I keep a house clean if everyone is leaving stuff to rot. You guys are lucky that I have this exceptional nose otherwise this science experiment would require the hazmat team!”
I open the bag and stick my head deep inside ready to solve the mystery of reeking brown bag. My eyes water and I almost fall to my knees as the my sensitive nostrils get the full effect.
“So whose is it?” He asks.
“Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm glad we found it to get rid of it.”
My husband immediately knows that I am covering something up. He watches as I throw the bag away then goes and gets it out of the trash. “Holy smokes! Is that?”
“Yes, it was ground beef. So let's just leave it alone!”
He stops and smiles. “Wait a minute. What do we have to tell you about leaving food around the house?”
“Yeah!” My son pipes in, “It attracts bugs and critters.”
“Mommy, I still love you.” My littlest cries.
“Oh stop it! At least I found it.”
So I move to the next task once the mystery is solved. We douse the house with a Lysol Napalm bomb while trying to forget the horror movie scene in the brown paper bag.
Mothers can smell better than any predator when it comes to taking care of family. Whether it's a diaper, dog present, food left in the room, or that offending bag of food -mothers come to the rescue. We keep you clean and free of contaminates by the power of our noses. Lesson learned? Follow your nose but keep it clean until you figure out it wasn't really you that caused the odor.
