everything makes me gag

I have a freak­ish sen­si­tiv­i­ty to smells. 

I can smell the smell un­der­neath the smell. The worst is when some­one tries to cov­er up a bad smell with a chem­i­cal smell. 

I hal­lu­ci­nate smells. Once, I had a cold and I smelled a strong garbage smell for a week. 

My gag re­flex is trig­gered eas­i­ly, by smells, thoughts of smells, im­ages and even sounds. My eyes get wa­tery and I can’t open my mouth, cause I will taste the smell! 

Some­times I get smells con­fused. As a kid, for months, I went crazy try­ing to fig­ure out why my house smelled strong­ly of peanut but­ter every night around the same time. I’d find out lat­er that my mom was smok­ing Capri Ul­tra Lights, out her bath­room window. 

I’m the first to no­tice if some­one has stepped in dog shit. In fact, I am usu­al­ly the only one who no­tices, and this fact baf­fles me. 

I re­cent­ly saw my cousin Gena, af­ter not see­ing her for like, 20 years and she asked me if I still gag from smells. This is the thing she re­mem­bered the most about me. 

I’m al­ways com­bat­ting smells. Smells are fly­ing dag­gers, I must fight back with room sprays, in­cense, and can­dles. They have to be ex­pen­sive can­dles though. Cheap can­dles make me gag. Here’s a list of things that make me gag (in no par­tic­u­lar order):

Jel­ly donuts

Aber­crom­bie and Fitch

Scent­ed lube

Mag­gots

Re­al­ly large pieces of sushi

Boy’s bed­rooms when they nev­er open the win­dows or wash their bedding

Moldy tow­els

Dirty laun­dry

Sit­ting next to some­one wear­ing dirty laundry

Dirty hair

Mi­crowaved curry

Al­co­hol on breath

Clothes that have sat in the draw­er for too long

Scent­ed laun­dry de­ter­gent (ex­cept lavender)

Mi­crowaved left-overs of any kind

Ear­rings

The in­side of my rub­ber horse mask

The US Supreme Court

Pierc­ing holes

Con­junc­tivi­tis

An­i­mals with goopy eyes

Al­co­holics in the morning

Air­plane farts

Dirty fin­ger­nails

Gout

Cloth bus seats

Socks af­ter wear­ing shoes all day

All poop smells but most­ly when some­one has stepped in it and now it’s on a shoe

The thought of Men’s underwear

Ba­bies

Cig­a­rette butts in a beer can

Jour­ney (the band)

Lit­ter boxes

Most Dog breath

Cat breath

Peo­ple that are de­hy­drat­ed breath

Peo­ple on co­caine breath

Card­board

Green clean

All off brand cleaners

Mall smell

Air fresh­en­er made from chemicals

Car air fresh­en­ers that hang from rear-view mirrors

The 40 high­way dri­ving through Amar­il­lo, Texas

The t‑mobile store on sun­set and west­ern (moldy smelling)

Wounds

In­fec­tions

Rash­es

A cer­tain someone’s very spe­cif­ic body odor (he’s not in my life any­more, but I’ll keep his name confidential)

That same person’s sour breath

Burnt cof­fee

The sound of a fork hit­ting the in­side of a bowl

Teeth on a fork

Peo­ple eat­ing eggs

Most chew­ing sounds

Burn­ing hair

Baby pow­der

Parts of Oxnard

Most per­fume

Poi­son per­fume (my mom wore it in the 90s. To me, it smelled like cat pee.)

Most cologne

Blood

Scabs

Cig­ar ashtray

Vom­it (the sight, the sound, the smell)

Rot­ting flow­ers in a vase

Dead an­i­mals

Raw chick­en

Open­ing up a bag of broccoli

Some grown men eat­ing ice cream cones (there are exceptions)

Ly­chee

Green boogers

Ba­nanas (al­though I like them in a smooth­ie, or bread)

Peo­ple coughing

Spit

Drool

Phlegm

New­born birds

New­born squirrels

Fruit in any state of decay

Two hous­es that I pre­vi­ous­ly lived in (smelled re­al­ly weird and bad all the time, always)

Car­pet + animals

Warm urine

Hos­pi­tals

On the flip side, hav­ing a smell sen­si­tiv­i­ty makes nice smells feel in­tense­ly won­der­ful to me. I die for a good smell. 

Night Jas­mine. The per­son I’m crush­ing on. Rukske can­dles. Fresh Cilantro. Or­ange blos­som. The rain. Kai oil. Laun­dry washed in Laven­der de­ter­gent. Show­er Fresh Se­cret de­odor­ant (I know). Weed. Gar­lic and onions sautéing. LAX curb­side ar­rivals. The in­side of my gui­tar case. Pup­py paws. Ros­es. Pe­onies. Lilys. Licorice. Mint. Strong French cheese (coun­ter­in­tu­itive, I know). Car­damom. Truffles.

 

—hol­ly solem

Flom­mist Hol­ly Solem is a singer/songwriter, mod­el, ac­tress and writer known for her work on Amazon’s orig­i­nal se­ries Hand of God, as well as play­ing, tour­ing and writ­ing with nu­mer­ous bands and artists. Copy­right © 2022–23 Hol­ly Solem.

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