Dr. Scrachnsniff is ready to see you now

I was just thinking how it would suck to be in the X-Men universe and have a power that makes you ostracized, while in this universe that power would merit nothing more than a fifteen minute daily show segment. I wonder how people in the X-Men universe could tell the difference between actual powers and stuff that's just a defect. I mean sure, having feet 20x the size of normal might be useful for stomping out forest fires, but surely wasn't outside of the realm of possibility in the world pre mutants.

Let's take, for example, a heightened sense of smell as a mutant power. I could see someone having that RIGHT NOW, but it'd be way worse in the X-Men universe. That "power" would suck. I assume for a human and not a dog that always being aware of feces in the area would not be good times. Engaging in oral sex might require a lot more planning and showering than it does for most. You might come to like these smells, like a dog, but then you might be tempted to eat out of the cat box like a dog and that's just no good.

In the universe we live in, with a super sense of smell, you could get paid as least as well as a German shepherd to find ibuprofen pot in the backpacks of middle schoolers, and you'd get a Today Show segment. In that universe you'd be shunned by society at large AND I think Wolverine probably already has that power in combination with being an immortal so you'd be entirely superflous. You'd be chased by pitchforks by larger society, and laughed out of the admissions office of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Children or whatever the heck it's called.

TOTAL SUCK.

That having been said, I think that'd at least be an easy power to hide. Maybe not when people start to wonder how you know they farted when no one else in the room smells anything, but I think if on the onset of puberty you suddenly have a heightened awareness of sharts you will probably learn to just shut the hell up about them pretty quickly.

This train of thought also got me wondering why we have hearing and vision tests but not smell tests. I should totally go into olfactory science or something and develop smelling-aids. Sure, the sense of smell is probably not as essential to our daily lives, but I bet some people out there wish baking brownies was fun again.

I also just think it'd be fun to devise a method of determining one's smell capabilities. With a vision test you look at letters from big to small, with hearing, sounds from soft to loud at various frequencies, crudely stated. I know it's more complicated than that, but for the sake of comparison, I suppose a smell test could test you from fresh to putrid (like frequencies) and from a mere waft to gag-reflex inducing pungent (like loud to soft).

I think this is possible--I've been on "Soaring over California" at Disneyland's California Adventure and they make you smell some perfumey crap at some point during the ride. I guess the major problem is making the scent particles gtfo before introducing another, but I'm sure that's nothing a clever nostril fan couldn't fix.

So suppose you did a smell test, and you could detect the faintest of lawn mower clippings in bottled form, and in another instance could determine that what you were smelling was the five day old dung of a racoon after having licked a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli clean. This I think would merit a smellogram score of the highest quality, and that fifteen minute daily show segment.

And you could silently count your blessings that the X-Men universe is only fiction.