There are a number of things I hate about COVID-19 but my inability to whiff No. 2 ain’t one of them

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O P I N I O N


Olefactory Elation


NEC LOGO GSMI have a confession to make:  I haven’t smelled poop in seven weeks.

I mean, not a hint, a whiff, the slightest tang of that rank odor.  Not mine, yours, the dog, the trucker in the stall next to me or anyone else’s has gotten past these golf ball size nostrils since the beginning of January.  About the time I caught COVID.

How I felt when I contracted the virus is coming. But for right now, I’m so focused on this whole poop thing, I could just swim in it.

Losing my sense of smell has been delightful. Yes, it has.  I don’t need to smell. I’ve come to grips with it. And there was little internal wrestling involved. I bowed immediately, pledging my devotion to the consequences – if one chooses to call it that.  In fact, I’d be okay if I never smell anything or anyone ever again.

Sure, some scents are nice – parts of the flesh, drops of gasoline, beach rocks and grandmother hugs.  But I’ve smelt enough cheese in my life, bathed my face in bowls of bodacious oils and cut hundreds upon hundreds of lawns at dawn, when the dew is still new and dripping.  I’ve been blessed with smelling, spoiled almost.  Carry a sucker on your face like the one I have for 50 years, can’t help but breathe in much of the world.

But I’ve also ridden the throne just as much as the next guy.  And food is a wonderful thing. I live as a glutton.  I can eat full pallets of cured meats and fried legs of any species.

You see where I’m going with this?  Same place them legs and slices of prosciutto are going.  Downtown.

I won’t spell it out for you, but I loathe the act of defecation.  Always have.  Discussing it, practicing it, writing about it.  I find it to be an abominable aspect of the human mold, a complete waste of time, literally.  One of God’s few holy folly’s.  I only wish our savior had thought “out of the box” when it came to this.

But as they say, when you got to go…yuck!

So, since I got COVID some seven weeks back, my sniffing cells are still in the dumper.  When I first lost the ability to smell, I also lost my sense of taste. Did not like that. I like the taste of pretty much anything.  My past life, I’m guessing, I was some jungle sow with spiked teeth and lips that dragged on bramble that lived off his constant hunger.

When my sister, Vito, who graciously drove up from the Bay State and dropped off a lasagna (my all-time favorite gorge food) to our home, where three out of four members of the household had COVID, I sullenly made my way over to the kitchen counter from the den, some 10 feet away, barley achy, almost sweating and nursing a near 100-degree temperature.  I reached my hand into the red sauce and cheese-soaked tray and scooped out three fingers worth of lasagna.  Nothing.  Tasted like putty.  Looked like glory. Smelled like defeat.  Then I spit it into the sink.\

Rats!

So, as the days wore on and my symptoms of COVID stayed steady — I was barely sick, suffering somewhere between a cold and the touch of the flu — my palate returned, first with toothpaste, then fruits, and then numerous other unmentionables.  Ah, it felt good to be back.  My buds were alive!!!!

First thing I did was go looking for that lasagna.  Been a few days but they hold up well.  Tucked in the back of the fridge still sat a half pan of sweetness, evenly cut pieces, finger-free.  I wrestled the platter out of the fridge — a mother of a dish, too —  and huddled my face over three plates of deliciousness, barely coming up to air.

I would just yell between bites, “More milk!”

The thing about the virus is, she has no quit in her. Hangs on like a bad rash hovering on a sweat spot.  Then the guilt sets in.  You feel lazy three weeks after quarantining for 10 days, which was spent napping and moping.  You feel at 3 p.m. like you usually do at 9 p.m.  Drag ass tired, ready to cozy down and gather the pets.  But then you look outside and the sun is still hanging around at five now, and, man, I just feel so beat up!  Tired of feeling tired.  Like the bums are laughing at me.

Then, I concluded, it’s mid-February, the least forgiving month of the year, the one that dominates me each year and lays my mind in the gutter, spread out with the rest of my sins.

So, there’s that about COVID.   The double whammy – guilt and lethargy.

Yet, far beyond beating yourself up for things you can’t control, there is beauty.  Maybe not everyone’s sense of beauty, but it’s mine…for now.

And I know this moment won’t last forever. But,  I am going to linger lovingly in this space in time and be happy not smelling anything. I don’t miss you.

For now, with nostrils filled with odorless air, I count the hours until spring arrives, the real spring, when life pops and feelings grow and smells arrive in bundles — roots and grass, flowers and birds, the bedrock of our existence.

And I wait, raising my nose to the treetops as the slate-colored skies burn gray into my membrane, I’ll be sitting here, swimming in my newfound passion. Smelling nothing. Nothing at all.

A “Poop Free Zone.”  And oh, what a relief it is.


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Rob Azevedo has a new collection of poetry outright called TURNING ON THE WASP, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Gibson Books.  He can be reached at onemanmanch@gmail.com

About this Author

Rob Azevedo

Rob Azevedo is an author, poet, columnist and radio host. He can be reached sitting in his barn at Pembroke City Limits and onemanmanch@gmail.com