I can still smell the formaldehyde from my 9th grade biology lab.

[MrPerson]

I'm 50. Will that ever go away?

[HopeHoops]

1. An Ocean Breeze Speed Stick?

All is not always what it seems to be ;}

[XemaSab]

2. I can still smell the dead shark from zoology when I was 20

I don't think it ever goes away. x(

(They lost the recipe.)

[peekaloo]

14. Ecology class in high school.

dissected sharks over a five day period. other students avoided us that week. five of us shared the following class and the teacher ordered us sit next to the windows.

nasty.

[burning rain]

3. That's awful.

You poor dude. For me, the effects -- which at worst led me to temporarily become a vegetarian after playing with the dead frog, fetal pig, or cat a while -- went away about a month after the end of our dissection work.

Or is it that you smell the stuff approaching? That would be really pessimistic! :yoiks:

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I can still smell the ether that they knocked me out with when I had my appendectomy

when I was 8 years old. I'm now 62.

[Roon]

5. Yeah, me too

When I was five years old I got my tonsils taken out and I still remember the smell of the ether. I am 41 now.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Yes. Maybe the OP can get rid of the formaldehyde smell by

sniffing some ether.

[SoxFan]

6. No, that's the microwave burrito I had for lunch

[TK421]

7. I have been fortunate enough that I have never experienced dissection in health class

health-biology...they called it health ( I think )

[styersc]

8. Perhaps you should try washing your hands,

The simplest solution is alsways the best.

[rainbow4321]

9. Another reason why I am so glad that I was born without the ability to smell anything

Yep. Can't smell a damn thing. Which comes in handy cuz I'm in the medical field and there are not too many things in this profession that smell good.
I went thru anatomy and physiology and we took a whole semester dissecting a pig...they were pretty nasty looking by the end of the class. They probably smelled, too, but I never knew it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosmia

Often people who have congenital anosmia report that they pretended to be able to smell as children because they thought that smelling was something that older/mature people could do, or did not understand the concept of smelling but did not want to appear different from others. When children get older, they often realize and report to their parents that they do not actually possess a sense of smell, often, to the surprise of their parents
------------
That was my case.

And to answer the "always asked" question..I have no idea if food tastes different to me than someone with a sense of smell because I have never tasted food WITH a sense of smell. Maybe it all would taste different but I will never know.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. My dad lost his sense of smell when he was 10,

following a head injury, but always insisted his sense of taste wasn't affected.
He got to prove it to one teacher by tasting foods blindfolded.

[Shell Beau]

12. I remember that smell. It was awful.

And those pig fetuses. So awful. Luckily we had to dissect our pigs in groups, and I managed to not actually dissect. I watched though. I hated every minute of that.

[RebelOne]

13. Never goes away. Thought I was the only one who remembered.

I'm 70 and I remember well the smell from my biology class when we had to dissect a frog.