This COVID symptom stinks, although I can’t smell it

I can’t wait until Dwayne Johnson — a.k.a. The Rock — someday returns to pro wrestling and then grabs the microphone to scream, “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?!” so that I can jump out of my seat and reply, “No! Not really!”

Then again, I haven’t been a wrestling fan since I was about 8 years old watching folks like Mr. Wrestling No. 2, Tommy “Wildfire” Rich and Abdullah the Butcher stomping around Columbus’ old Municipal Auditorium. And I only saw those matches on TV, never in person.

But my point remains the same — I can’t smell, dang it!

It’s one of the symptoms of COVID I had heard about but wasn’t really worried about. I was more on the lookout for such symptoms as fever, coughing and being dead. But my sense of smell is about 90 percent gone now, and that also affects the way most things taste. For instance, I could barely taste today’s COVID lunch of Tide Pods washed down with bleach.

Even soft drinks are now just flavorless carbonated water, but maybe this will help me kick that caffeine addiction once and for all. Meanwhile, most foods now need a lot of black pepper or other spices to be tasted. If I someday get back to Troy’s Snack Shack in Montezuma, Ga., and can’t taste those delicious double-chili-cheeseburgers, I’m going to have to ask Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates to give me a different, more manageable disease.

I guess if I had to choose one of my senses to lose, it would be my sense of smell. It would certainly change my annual vacation plans if I couldn’t see the ocean, feel the sun on my face or hear waves crashing. I could probably get by without smelling dead fish washed up on the shore.

Still, I hope my sense of smell eventually returns because I rather miss a few scents.

I miss the smell of coffee brewing in the morning. Now I have to practically stick my nose in a cup of coffee to smell anything. That’s going to make it very awkward when we all go back into the coffee shops.

I miss the smell of soap and shampoo. I can’t smell my deodorant, either. I think I may stop using all of them if they only benefit other folks. Plus, it would be fun to see the expressions on other people’s faces when we eventually stop social distancing.

I miss the smell of a grill firing up. Charcoal isn’t exactly edible, yet whenever I smell coals burning, my mouth begins to water.

I miss the smell of freshly mowed grass. I miss the smell of summer rain evaporating after hitting hot pavement. I miss the smell of candles. When we start getting back out into society someday, I’m sure I’ll realize a few other scents I miss.

Of course, there are a few smells that I won’t miss so much. I won’t miss what city folks call “fresh country air,” which is a combination of cow poop and chicken houses. I won’t miss the odors from polluting factories. I won’t miss the smell of boiled eggs, and I still don’t know how people eat them.

There apparently are a few ways to help retrain your sense of smell. I’ll try them. Most involve essential oils, like lavendar, olive and Quaker State. My wife hates the smell of most essential oils, though, so I may have to sniff some unessential oils.

The research shows that the majority of folks who suffer anosmia with their coronavirus regain some or all of their sense of smell in four to six weeks. Of course, by then you’d think that I’d be able to smell the grass at a football game, corn dogs at the fair or popcorn at the movie theater. Those events don’t look promising anytime soon.

I guess if coronavirus continues to put a halt to everything, there won’t be much left to smell anyway.