Anosmia and Burning Down My Apartment Story

Is Having No Sense of Smell Dangerous?

As we all know, apartments are designed to be our safe havens. A shelter for comfort, well-being and what not. Mine is. But it almost wasn’t.

I like to tell this story because whenever I talk to other people who have anosmia and can’t smell, I’m mostly sure to find they have also experienced the same thing. 

One day, I was home, minding my own business and I decided to cook something cuz obviously, I was really hungry. So, I opened my fridge, leaned in to see what was inside, and I proceeded to fire up the stove top. “Mmmmmm, I’m going to make a nice veggie stir fry,” I thought.

I have failed to mention in my other posts so far, that I have pets. Two dogs to be exact. Two cutie little patootie dogs whose cuteness, I learned, could be lethal. You can easily do the math:

2 cutie patootie doggies + 1 great doggie mom who’s hungry, addicted to their smooches, with plans to cook = Disaster.

Why?

I easily got distracted.

My cutest dog decided he wanted a belly rub, so I gave in. “Oh you want another belly rub?” “You do huh?” “Awww thats a good doggieboy!” I did this for what seemed just a couple of seconds.

—Then all of a sudden, a huge cloud of smoke started emerging from the kitchen. It was almost apocalyptic-looking!

“Beeeepppppp!!!!” “Beeeeeeepppppp!!!”

“Beeeeeppppp!!!!”

The fire alarm was blaring at full force!!!

It took, no kidding! 20 seconds for my place to explode in full black smoke and toxic oil fumes.

I bolted for the kitchen, covered my nostrils with my shirt and used some old Christmas themed mitten looking thing to grab the red-hot pan. “$;&/)-@,” this thing is hoooooooottttt!!!!!  I grabbed the pans’ handle and threw the thing out!!!!!

“Phewwwew!!!!!” I thought to myself.

Well the smoke still kept coming out. It turns out an old piece of charred food was still stuck deep inside the electric coils of my electric stove.

I noticed this, and immediately grabbed my pair of metal kitchen tongs and put my best “operation” game skills to the test.

“Yes!” I grabbed the little piece of charred crap and threw it out the window.

Omg, my hands were shaking!!!!!

Luckily, no one got hurt! I wasn’t so much worried for me as I was worried especially for my little babydogs. But man, this experience shook me to my core (maybe I should just stick to snacking?).

Like I said, thankfully this is now just another adventure I’ve experienced because I can’t smell and I am sharing it now as the Girl Who Can’t Smell.

It was all just a very super fast rush of adrenaline, thats all! Can someone remind me again of who says life isn’t exciting????

All I have to say is that I am thankful my fire alarms (all 5 of them) were working that day. Oh, yes you got that right! I have 5…LOL

Sooooooo….do you have a similar experience you’d like to share???? What’s your experience with not smelling and potential fires??? Has anosmia made you think twice about cooking? 

Let me know. You can always contact me via email: girlwhocantsmell@girlwhocantsmell.com or on InstagramFacebookTwitter

With Love,

The Girl Who Can’t Smell aka “The Fire Survivor”

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