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.

A rundown of getting ready

Here is something about me--every neuron in my brain is dedicated to the absorption of whatever I'm learning in school, and it has appeared to have sloughed the ability to do ANYTHING ELSE. As a consequence, I never remember where I put anything, where anything is, or how to get anywhere.

Women are usually stereotypically pegged as slow to get out of the house due to societal pressure an insatiable need to gussy up--but I just wear embarrassingly geeky t shirts and jeans, rake my fingers through my mad-scientistesque hair and call it a day. My time is mostly taken up by running around like a freshly decapitated chicken, searching for basic things I need in order to not be arrested for indecent exposure.

First thing I do is search for my bra (after brushing teeth and stuff--I think I'm the most head-up-ass person on earth but I'll concede that title to anyone who could lose a shower and tooth brush). Well, one of three bras. Any will do, but they are all consistently rude and go missing. Finding one is often not easily accomplished, and since I start getting ready 5 minutes prior to needing to leave, I have to think fast. I proceed to throw a tantrum, and then dig into the deep recesses of my dresser drawer and make do with a training bra from middle school that makes my boobins look like triangular orangutan teats.

Finding a shirt and pants is not difficult because I'll wear anything lying around on the floor that doesn't smell like armpit musk, and since the floor is my hamper there is a plethora to choose from. A quick sniff and I'm off.

The next problem for me usually comes with finding my glasses. I'm nearsighted so I mostly only use them when I'm out of the house, because otherwise I'm on my computer or playing DS and those things are, well, near. Hence, no need for glasses. Because of this, I make life into a Where's Waldo game for myself whenever I come home from school because I put down my glasses wherever I reflexively think to do so, and this sort of muscle-memory impulse doesn't imprint location into my brain. Thus I have to search every dresser, night stand, desk, table, counter, and other such surface in my entire home because any of them could be the current resting place of my glasses. This whole time I am freaking out wondering if I left them at school, or in my husband's car, or anywhere that's had the misfortune of my presence the previous day. Usually I find them somewhere I've already looked five times but didn't notice them because for some reason I don't recognize things right in front of my face.

After that is done, I'm pretty much done except for the not so small task of making sure the stuff I need to take with me is in order. This usually consists of my keys so I can get back home, my wallet, cell phone, any books, papers and homework I may need for the day. . .usually this is all on a desk somewhere, but if I went out the day before I may have transferred my keys and wallet to my purse, which means I have to find my purse, and once I find it, fish for the required items within it.

This should be easy for me--the only reason I even have a purse is because my mom buys me one every year in the vain hopes that I will one day take an interest in feminine things. They generally get stashed in the closet for future use when the one I have falls apart into strings of purse confetti. I do not like to waste things. That having been said, I usually have three things total in this cavernous beast known as a "purse," and the rest is empty space. STILL I have a difficult time recovering my keys and cell phone beneath my wallet. I'll scour my purse with one hand, decide these things aren't in it, flail about my home in search of them, and repeat twice before dumping out my purse and realizing they were in there all along.

All of this contributes to the fact that I am incredibly high strung and it's a miracle I don't have high blood pressure, and that I haven't had a heart attack at my tender age. There should seriously be a word for this and I should have a note from the doctor to have an excuse to be potentially late everywhere I go. It could be called Dorkorrhea, a sputtering of dorkish ineptitude everywhere. Like diarrhea or logorrhea or otorrhea except it's your obnoxious dorky habits instead.

Maybe I'm onto something. Maybe.