Nosing Around

 

Various members of my family are getting a chuckle out of one of my peculiar physical disabilities.  "That's shocking!" I can hear you bellow.  Indeed, but I'm tough;  I can take it.

The particular disability is that I cannot smell marijuana.  I first began to suspect something was wrong when we lived in Brookfield, CT back in the late 70s.  Norene and I attended a "drug awareness seminar" hosted by the local sheriff at a neighborhood church.  A deputy with a squeeze bottle inside of which burned a quantity of MJ walked among us puffing clouds of smoke so that we parents could recognize what I'm told is a quite-distinctive odor, the better to detect when our children were engaging in "reefer madness", I suppose.

"What are we supposed to be smelling?" I asked the person next to me.  She looked at me like I was crazy.  "You can't smell that?"

No, I couldn't.  It didn't smell like anything I could recognize other than burning paper.  "No, no... it's kind of a sweet smell... very flowery."  That's not how I describe a paper fire.

Since then I've deliberately placed myself — several times — in situations where I knew or suspected I was surrounded by people puffing away on joints.  Nothing.  I know it's not the aroma they're after, and I no longer smoke anything, but I am feeling a little... deprived, I guess, is the right term.  It's said to be a very pleasant aroma but since I quit smoking, that means I'll never get a Rocky Mountain High, so all this legalization going on hither and yon is likely to do absolutely nothing for me.

So don't bother trying to describe the aroma to me.  Its a waste of time.  I suspect that if someone were to synthesize "attar of marijuana" I might be unable to smell that either.