I am SO going to bring the overall mood of my blog back down into the childish, scatological range. It must be done. Come along, if you dare!

I’m sure most if not all of my extremely intelligent readers know of the phenomenon known as ‘asparagus pee.’ I like to call it “asparapee”. This amazingly unique scent isn’t produced by everyone, however. I have understood for years that there’s a genetically inherited enzyme that lets you excrete this special odor after eating asparagus (I call it ‘special.’ I really don’t find it offensive, just pretty damn identifiable).

But…that’s not true. We all have asparagus pee! It turns out that only some of us can actually smell it. I have a super-sniffer so I am not surprised to know I am one of the supposed tiny fraction of 22% who can tease this odour out of the air. My challenge to those of you who know that you have the smell in your own pee, and have a partner who swears that they don’t: smell their pee. It won’t take much effort! It might take some bravery on the part of those (Socks, I’m looking at you) who keep their bathroom habits very private. You don’t have to look or observe, just sniff!

I don’t have the option of keeping private potty-time habits. Not in my own house with one tiny bathroom for two people. My guts are “not right” so when I gotta go, I gotta go and right now. I can’t afford to wait until he’s done with his shower. Or his shave. Or sometimes, horribly, his tooth-brushing. Disgusting but unavoidable. So! Being already accustomed to way too much personal intimacy, we agreed years ago to a green way of toileting; one used on ships, and probably a lot of other places where water is a premium: If it’s brown, flush it down – if it’s yellow, let it mellow. Hence my theory that hubby (who has no sense of smell whatsoever compared to me) only learned to recognise the scent of asparapee after he was informed in advance, by me, loudly and gleefully, that I had asparapee and he had a potty visit shortly afterward. It only takes about 15 minutes to come out: how cool is that? A science experiment right in my own bladder!

Moving on from asparagus. I have noticed for a while that my pee occasionally smells exactly like coffee. Not pee at all. Fresh-brewed coffee. I don’t drink that much coffee either. Just in the morning, maybe the equivalent of a cup and a half, and I use sugar and cream. But it is pretty damn strong coffee. It doesn’t happen every day – but when it does? whoooo, stanky! I’ve remarked on this to hubby but he seems unimpressed, uninterested, or unbelieving.

Last week, iDJ asked me if you can pee garlic. This was after he told me that a co-worker could smell garlic on him, the morning after the night we had split a bulb of roast garlic that was cooked with our Sunday chicken (if you haven’t had roast garlic, do it, do it now). My response, “Well, not in my experience so far, but I suppose it is possible?” I was rather unimpressed, uninterested and unbelieving. Until tonight when I opened the bathroom door to a mellow yellow and the reek of garlic about knocked me down. Wow. Took two flushes to clear the room (it’s very, very small). So how come he can pee garlic and I can pee coffee and neither of us does the other? I’d love to sign us both up for experimentation. I wouldn’t mind peeing in a cup for the answer to this question!