Can't You Smell That Smell?

Our family contingent went out to dinner Saturday night at the Thai restaurant next door to the SW Hotel in North San Francisco. The waitress was offering $2 beers with every dinner. Several people ordered a beer, but I refrained. I haven't had a beer in a couple of years simply because I had lost my taste for it. I had also lost my taste for coffee about the same time, but recently I had started drinking it again, so I thought that maybe I have also regained my taste for beer. I took a whiff of my brother's. It didn't smell like much so I thought I would chance it and ordered one. It was so good I had a second one. This is the best news I have had in a long time: I can drink beer again.

Two or three years ago I came down with a nasty sinus infection. One sinus got so swollen that it was pushing on my eyeball and giving me double vision. I went to an optometrist who gave me a special prescription lens to compensate for this. Geez, did I really go through all this? It sounds like Science Fiction. Eventually the sinus problem cleared up, the swelling went down and my vision returned to normal. But I had lost my taste for coffee and beer. They were completely unpalatable. I could drink coffee with creamer, and after a few months I could drink white wine, but I still could not drink black coffee or beer. I switched to drinking tea and pretty much gave up on drinking anything with alcohol. About a month ago I regained my taste for coffee. I can drink black coffee now and enjoy it.

I suspect that the infection did some kind of damage that interfered with my sense of smell. Perhaps the receptors that detected the lighter, more fragrant and more pleasant odors were damaged whereas the receptors that detected the heavier and less pleasant odors were not.

Most people enjoy coffee and beer, but not all. I wonder if there is some kind of virus that infects peoples noses that affects their sense of smell, or could it be genetic?

And what about vegetarians? I smell meat cooking and I start salivating. Could it be that they cannot detect this odor, or they do not find it pleasant? Could this be caused by a virus, or could it be genetic?

Can't talk about smell without hearing from Lynyrd.

I know I complain about music videos that just show the band playing: how boring. But this one has a frame counter, now that is kind of cool. Also the first time I have seen one on YouTube. I have no idea what ME-26 is.