I Smell a Smell

I remember reading when I was pregnant with the Peanut, that pregnancy can seem to enhance a woman's sense of smell. I beg to disagree, helpful pregnancy book. I think it is something that lies dormant in every woman, a super sense if you may, that becomes activated the minute you are pregnant and stays until the day you die.
My mother is a perfect example of this. I swear she could have worked with the police on sniffing out drugs on people at the airport. I'd be sitting in the kitchen, enjoying a pb&j, and my mother would come in with a look on her face that I can only describe as the 'I Smell a Smell' face. Of course I could never smell whatever it was that she was talking about, but that never deterred her. She would hunt down whatever the offending scent was with such singleminded determination it would put any pig to shame( pigs have an excellent sense of smell, did you know that)? Sometimes she would never find the source of the smell but I remember one occasion where she walked in from the backyard, triumphant look replacing the I Smell a Smell face, to announce that a man had been walking past our house smoking a cigarette. He had been smoking and walking past our house that had all of the windows and doors shut, there wasn't even a breeze that day.
From that day forward I would drive my smoking friends NUTS by insisting they never smoke around me. "You don't understand MAN! My mom is like the domestic version of Spider Man, with a tingling 'Mother sense' for shit like cigarette smoke."
I was very proud today to realize that I too have the I Smell a Smell face. Although my husband calls it the 'kitty stink face'. You know, the look that cats make when they smell something strange, mouth partly open and slightly disgusted? I wasn't quite sure what it was that I was smelling at the time, but I found a small piece of carrot that Ari (puppy daughter) had hidden under the couch cushions and I can no longer smell anything out of place in the house!
So, how about you? Do you have a kitty stink face? Did your mother? Curious minds would love to know!


Namaste,


H*