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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Sheetascastle on 2026-03-17 20:32:21+00:00.
Obligatory-it wasn't today, it was last week and I just remembered my husband said it would make a good TIFU post. So here I am.
I teach about nature in a park and I take nature things off site to programs. If you ever had someone show up to a classroom with furs, skulls, plant specimens and random animal stories, they probably do a similar job.
A local library requested a program for their adults with special needs and dementia "coffee hour". So I did my thing with a bunch of pictures, a box full of furs, bones, and nature scent boxes. I walk around the table showing things, having people feel stuff and then offer to have them smell "prairie grass" and bergamot and "wood smoke".
One of the participants had degenerative vision and they are legally blind but can sometimes see color, shape, or movement. So I was trying to incorporate descriptions of images and colors and saying where I was placing things to make it helpful for them.
I open the scent box and tell them I can set it in their hand to hold to their nose. and they say, "oh no, I can smell it from here" which was mostly impressive to me. Then I'm doing more scents and they say the same. And as I pack up to leave I feel a cough so I lift my arm to cough into my elbow. At which point i feel that distinct "I forgot deodorant" sweat in my armpit. And I'm a postpartum nursing mom so it is ... not a pretty smell.
So tldr: spent an hour encouraging a blind person to smell things while I stood there next to them wearing no deodorant.