The Nose Knows (Dale)

Postaday for June 7th: Super SensitiveIf you were forced to give up one sense, but gain super-sensitivity in another, which senses would you choose?

How do ya mean, forced? What are you gonna do, hold a gun to me head and holler “Awright, lose the sense of smell, jerk-face, or you’ll be sleepin’ wit da fishes. Don’t worry, you’ll get better eyesight outta da deal.” Or perhaps I’m to go under the knife. “Observe, Dr. Malicious, as I sever Dale’s optic nerves and reattach them to his sense of taste. And voila! The next superior sommelier is created! Muahhaahhaaa!” Gimme a break.

Actually, thinkin’ about it, I suppose it would be awright to go blind if I got an uptick in the other senses. Like that Daredevil kid. Of course, firstly, he’s in his twenties, and on the other hand, he’s a comic book hero. But I’d sign up for that. I been around my fair share of decades, and I’ve seen plenty. Blind me if it’ll make my hearin’ better.

I’m guessing most folks won’t want to lose their sense of sight. But what is there to look at? With hearing, you still got your bands from the 70s (before music went stupid), you still got your baseball games on the radio. What else do ya need?

But Dale, you’re sayin’, this is your first post about not hittin’ the strip clubs when your wife is outta town. You’d give that up if you went blind. Well, thanks, ya jerk, for bringin’ up strippers when I wasn’t going to. And lemme tell ya, I can still go. Might be harder to get there, but I’d still know the bartender, and you don’t need eyes to enjoy properly made martini.

You don’t need ears, either, so I don’t know if I’d pick enhanced hearing if I was going to lose my eyesight. My wife makes a mean meatloaf. And I’m sayin’ mean in the sense that it calls you names to your face while you’re eating it and then maybe tries to break your car windows when you’re done. So I don’t know if having a better sense of taste would be such a good thing for me either. Who knows, maybe there’s some kinda wonderful spice down there underneath all the char. My luck it would be Turmeric. We went to Goa a few years ago on some kind of vacation and she brought back a gallon of the stuff.

And I’m not so sure what having an improved sense of touch would get me. Maybe I’m at the Dancing Bare and Carla comes by for her tip and I reach in and I can tell just by feeling if I’m grabbin’ a Washington out of my wallet or a Jackson. I mean I know Carla’s got the kid and she’s working on her Associates but I give her a twenty just once and I look like a creep tryin’ to buy somethin’. Then again, I figure blind guys got special dividers for their bills so who needs touch?

I guess I’ll go with smell, then. Yep, gouge out my eyes, and make my snout a thing of beauty. Dogs live by, all the animals do, and they been around a lot longer than we have. I told you Loretta makes a mean meatloaf but up my olfactory and now I’m picking out the perfume she puts on when we go to church but wears off by Sunday’s chicken roast. I’m smellin’ the shampoo in her hair, the metals in her lipstick, the sweat on her upper lip because I don’t care what temperature it is, putting on the AC in April just feels wrong. Global warming, am I right?

That’d be good for a laugh, anyway. I like hearin the old girl laugh. She come walztin by and I’d smell soap and I’d say something like, “Wash your hands again, Lo? You gettin’ all OCD on me, woman?” And it’s cause she’s visiting the ladies more often now but she couldn’t admit that and I’m blind so I can’t see her blush but maybe I can smell it.

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