“Genetic quirk”, you say?
The mortality ratio of that school gives me pause.
Also, so many old white guys hanging on the wall.
I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.
I can smell ants and cockroaches. I can also smell when someone has been in my house hours after they leave. Its annoying as hell to have this sense of smell since its considered rude to point out that someone stinks. To me its like they are screaming in a small room.
No anime conventions for you unless you wear a gas mask!
In 95 I was staying at a hotel that had a D&D convention. I was with a group of union boilermakers and we got gripped at by the staff for refusing to allow some of those stinkers on the elevator with us.
I’ve never actually been to an anime convention and had no idea how common anime fans with poor hygiene actually existing was until I read some of the horror stories when this was posted before.
I would guess it’s just related to teenagers getting body odors and not knowing yet that they have to deal with them.
Maybe, but I don’t remember everyone stinking when I was a teen. Or teenagers in general stinking any more than anyone else now.
I can smell cockroaches and periods. It’s weird, but I can for some reason
I can smell when a woman has her period if I smell her skin, so not at any distance other than intimately. My best guess is all the hormonal changes alter pheromones from the normal and we can pick up on that.
Not like it is a bad smell, just her normal natural scent changes.
Oh yeah me as well. I can also smell when someone has a disease. I know cancer or at least the type my grandmother had but some of them I have no idea what is wrong with them. I can also differentiate different kinds of drugs.
I’m one of these people. I can smell an apartment roach infestation from the front door, every time.
And yes, restaurants always get the “sniff check” before we sit down. No-go odors are:
- bleach
- pine-sol (amonia)
- heavy perfume (think “Glade plugin-in”)
- insects (roaches, etc)
- pet odor (wet dog, litterbox)
- sewage (usually a dry floor drain but that’s still not okay)
- dingy carpet (think: “old movie theater”)
The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means. And they obviously don’t care what olfaction means to someone trying to enjoy a meal, which says heaps about what they think food service actually is. Everything else just speaks to the “I don’t care what you smell” part, or there’s something very wrong with how the kitchen is run. /rant
An example of a top-shelf dining odor experience? I once went to a Japanese restaurant at opening time. The only smell in the dining room was that of the specific kind of imported cedar in the cutting boards. This is traditionally cleaned with boiling hot water, and nothing else. This released a gentle woody and pine-y scent that just filled the space and invited the senses. I came hungry, but I sat down ravenous. The meal to follow was something I will never forget.
Edit: some clarification since this got some traction. I know that bleach and ammonia are s-tier disinfectants and absolutely necessary for food prep, health standards, and the rest. I use this stuff at home. My issue is with establishments that utterly fail at ventilating these odor and spoil the dining experience with strong chemical odors. Looking deeper I find very strong cleaning odors (long after opening hours) suspicious since it’s very easy to splash stuff around, giving the impression of cleanliness, but not actually clean anything. Strong chemical smells also make it impossible to detect sewage, rot, mold, soil, and other things that would easily flag a restaurant. I’d rather not take the chance.
Yeah no dude, I keep a ten percent mixture of bleach n water around to sanitize surfaces I use for food prep. This is standard practice. The dishes get soaked in a weak bleach mixture after washing. 3 sinks, wash, bleach, rinse. And there’s pinesol in the mop bucket.
There is a difference between standard bleach and pinesol usage and using it as a way to conceal other smells or problems. Or even worse, not knowing how to use those chemicals to clean. You know how to use a weak bleach solution for cooking surfaces, does your bartender? I’ve seen front of house employees over use cleaning chemicals because isn’t it better to use stronger chemicals to clean. My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.
It’s unlikely anyone will notice the smell of properly used cleaning products.
My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.
This is exactly the kind of BS I’m talking about. I once knew some pool lifeguards that had to rotate through bathroom cleaning duty. I overheard that their MO was to just get everything wet with a hose, splash pinesol on the floor, and call it a day.
Yeah, I can see a place smelling like a public swimming pool being off-putting. 10% bleach is really common across the food industry, though. Making bread, jerky, kombucha, and various grains, each facility had the same bleach concentration for cleaning (among other cleaning and sanitizing solutions).
I am my bartender. Also the janitor and cook. Yes, a ten percent bleach mixture does give an odor, it fades within minutes. I was just chopping raw chicken, sure, boiling water is an option, but awkward. Quick wipe down, spritz solution everywhere, wipe again 5 minutes later, better for all involved.
This is basically evey kitchen I’ve worked in. The pine sol can be substituted or more commonly mixed with other detergents.
I can smell roaches and bedbugs. One is annoying. The second will cause me to flee a building in horror.
I’ve also informed several friends that they were pregnant. They never believe me the first time.
I thought everyone could. Is that something only some people can smell as well?
TBF, there are lots of things with a smell similar to cockroaches. Some of them wouldn’t be a red flag to be found at a restaurant. Also, smells are very localized, and I doubt your friend walks through the kitchen.
But yeah, I’ve gone away from restaurants because they smelled like cockroaches.
Roaches do have a smell. Yuck. Ants though? There are so many different kinds of them, I can’t smell them, or I haven’t noticed if so.
My lunatic ex had a nose like a bloodhound. He could smell anything.
I don’t question your friend’s ability to smell cockroaches, but I gotta tell you, there is no restaurant without them. The best you can do is minimize.
Roaches go where there’s food. That’s just a fact of life.
Holy shit I thought I was either full of shit or a mutant freak. I’m happy to be a mutant freak.
I feel so validated right now you guys have no idea.
This! I used to tell people all the time I could smell some ant hills from several yards away. Fire ants smell like death. The larger and more aggressive species in my area smell more than the more benign ants. I’m sure it’s a warning to other animals to stay away.
This just tells me ant particles are constantly flying into my nose and mouth and I don’t have receptors for them. Gross
Honestly, kind of a blessing. It’s not like you could do much about it if you knew.
I mean, your bed is home to tens of thousands of microscopic bugs as well. I’d rather not smell them.
When you smell a fart, molecules from someone else’s asshole are inside your nose
When you take a dump and feel the smell from the toilet - it’s an actual shit particles reaching your nose and mouth. You eat shit while you shit.
Well I’m already full of shit so tough luck particles, there’s no room
Probably similar to that “bitterness” test that a lot of kids got to do in science class where you taste that little strip of paper. To some it’s nothing, to others it’s very bitter. Genetics has given some the extra “taste”, supposedly that might allow people to avoid eating poisonous things containing oxalates or glucosinates. Unfortunately it also means you probably dislike things lie IPA beers or other foods that have bitter compounds that don’t bother others.
Huh that’s interesting…I hate beer, lager and coffee, all everyday adulting things…I wonder if I have this gene.
wait does cofee dosent taste sour to other pepole ?
that is the hipster new generation coffee
It tastes really bitter to me. I don’t understand how people can drink it. Tried it black, white, with sugar, without.
Love the smell of coffee beans though. If coffee tasted anything like beans smell I’d be drinking that stuff non stop.
If it does it’s really bad coffee
I have a high sensitivity to sour. It sucks. Apples are often too sour. So it’s not just ants, or bitterness.
Mine has always been vision and hearing hard sounds, like doors closing. I can hear all the stupid little sounds like that. And I’m just weirdly good at deciphering shadows at night as long as there’s some light.
I’m sure in ancient times this variation of who has good senses for what served a purpose.
I have really annoying hearing. I’m not sure how to fully describe it but my ears are super tuned into sounds. Very often I will be sitting with my wife or somebody else and I am like “do you hear that?” and they are like “wtf are you talking about?” and I have to be like “Shhh… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “no wtf” and then I’m like “Wait no no… Wait… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “Wait yeah… How tf did you hear that while we were talking? Were you paying attention?” and I’m like “No, I wasn’t because I kept hearing this noise”…
Like… Sometimes people’s voices just sound like noises and I can’t hear them unless I focus because my ears are listening to the noises around me. It can be really frustrating.
Oh yeah, I get that too, where my brain just decides not to decipher spoken words suddenly. At any rate, noise cancelling headphones are awesome.
Have you ever been tested for Sensory Processing Disorder
No, they probably just rolled all of that into the ADHD diagnosis.
You would hate this goddamn bird outside my window that doesn’t shut up from 5:30-10:30 every morning
Haha, I sleep like the dead.
Some people wipe standing up…
I used to, until it was pointed out that wiping while sitting is better so I switched
How is it “better”?
Keeps your cheeks spread so you don’t mush the poop when you stand up.
Some people don’t wipe at all. Bidet gang represent!
I can’t smell living ants, but there’s a common species of ant in the US that smells like rotten coconut when squished.
I hope the rotten coconut is not from accumulated nut
But how dies rotten coconut smell?
I’m not sure about rotten coconut but there are small black ants here in Oklahoma that smell strongly… metallic? to me when I squish then.
I can smell wasps nests. The queen odor is very strong to me. But other smells people notice are lost on me.
And I hear everything. Autism I guess.
Formic acid
I can only smell them when I kill them 🤷♂️
Great, now im gonna accidently inhale some ants as I try to smell them.
Don’t try and hone your skill with fire ants then.
Ozzy Osbourne would like a word.
My mother in law can do it, she’ll walk into a room, sniff disagreeably and say - “Huele a hormiga.”
I love this so much
Is it the formic acid? I bet it is.
WHO RUNS AROUND SNIFFING ON ANTS?!
