Wake up and smell the coffee.

My dad, who died with Alzheimer's 5 years ago, used to say, "Wake up and smell the coffee", when rousing me from bed.

Sorry dad, I haven't been able to smell the coffee for some time now.  Nope, not coffee, flowers, dirty diapers, or much of anything.  I hear the loss of smell is called anosomia and is often an indication of a degenerative brain disease, such as parkinson's.  My olfactory sense was never all that good but it started to really diminish about 10 years ago.  It is not completely gone.  I can still smell ammonia, chlorine, etc.  I am not sure I would recognize the perfume they put in natural gas - which could be problematic on some inopportune day.

I began to wonder about myself, in a serious manner, about 2 years ago.  My wife kept complaining about a sewer smell in the basement.  I thought it was all in her mind.  I couldn't smell anything.  When my son and daughter came over, they said they could smell "poo" (they are very polite) but I figured their mother had implanted a self fulfilling suggestion in them.  It was not until a friend of mine visited and I asked him if he smelled anything.  "Raw sewage".  Sure enough, a sewer pipe had broken and the sour smell of excrement was pervasive throughout the cellar and was gradually encroaching on the first floor.

I finally had to wake up and smell the roses (I hate coffee).  The sewer needed fixing and as for me, I had an impairment.  It wasn't enough to send me to a doctor.  Who knew that a loss of smell could eventually lead to a vibrating arm? 

On the upside, I now eat very spicy food that I couldn't eat when my sense of smell was working.