I have congenital anosmia. Don't have to look it up, I'm gonna tell you, it's the lifelong inability to smell. Like someone born blind, I cannot miss it, I never had it, Also, I can't actually understand the concept on a personal basis, only as an abstract. As a child, people would sometimes talk about something smelling good(a flower maybe) and hold it to their face and inhale deeply. I'd imitate them, but there was nothing there.
More people complain about it than not. So, it can't be much. However, I have a deep paranoia about having rotten garlic that rolled behind the refrigerator or something,
And not sure if people tell me everything smells fine because it's true, or because they don't want to offend me. How could I know?
So, when loss of smell was listed as one of the side effects of covid, I was thinking...all those curses from covid, along with this one blessing! When I shock my well every few years....I cannot smell the bleach, so have to talk somebody into coming around to let me know when the water has bleach in it, and when it's clean. Covid patients wouldn't be able to smell the bleach Dr Blump prescribed!!(I can tell you from actual experience a little bleach still in the water burns the tip of your tongue)
They couldn't smell their bodies rotting, like one of the earlier SAV ladies, nor could they smell the constant diarrhea. Or their fingers(and toes) rotting off.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.( I hope you know the joke that was the start of...Don't call me Lucky Lucky, call me Lucky Lucky Lucky!)
One good side effect of Covid is that I don't have to rotate dinner each year with some right wing relatives over the holidays. Especially their spoiled grandchildren. I cancelled our dinners in 2020 and haven't looked back.