SCIENCE: The Nose Knows

Dr. Earl Hadlock, general practitioner and researcher at the Albright Institute for the past twenty-three years, has come to a conclusion. Some people smell like a hamburger.

“Initially, I thought I was getting them on a bad day, or maybe they were nervous, but, more and more, I've noticed that certain men smell like hamburgers. In particular, they smell like cheeseburgers with diced onions.”

Hadlock, a vegetarian for nearly thirty years, says the smell is not unpleasant, but it is disturbing. “The smell is usually strongest in the right armpit. That is where many microorganisms, primarily bacteria, thrive. What I'm trying to do here is to make a pit-cheeseburger connection, as it were. But there are wider implications to consider as well.

“Most men are right-handed, so the left pit gets the heavy sweep with deodorant. Also, there is a sensitive thorny gland in the right armpit of most adult males. This gland, the Tinker Teat, often secretes a bitter milky substance. Most males avoid applying deodorant directly to the tender gland.”

Hadlock offers discounts to patients who agree to submit to the pit-swabbing and sniffing.

“It's really a win-win situation. I get my little guys for the dish, a whiff or two, and the patients save on the bill. Nobody's getting hurt.”

Some patients are hesitant, confusing the pit-swab with a DNA sample. Hadlock dismisses this association. “Folks watch too much television. I could take a culture sample without telling them what I was doing, but that would be unethical, in my book, at least.”

Three years ago, Dr. Franklin Fendowski, a former fertility specialist at the Albright Institute, was accused of selling donor sperm samples to a small holistic healing hospital in China.

“Since then,” Hadlock said, “they have really put a lid on things here. But I'm not interested in selling a Chinaman Joe Blow's sperm. I've got better things to do with my time.”

Hadlock has also investigated a similarity between great horny yellow toe fungus and the lesser hard cheese family of Eastern Europe. “What keeps me up at night is not trying to figure out where I smelled that before, but why am I noticing this now? Patients are not used to their doctor sniffing around their body, and they can grow very uncomfortable with the sometimes-lengthy procedure. I try like all hell to collect a sense memory as fast as I can. I should just knock 'em out and sniff away. I'm joking, of course.”

Why is he smelling this now? Hadlock speculates that there is a once-dormant component of our DNA that has been switched on. “For food, is my guess. We were put on this planet to be food for somebody, or something. Our DNA alarm clock has sounded, and now, some of us smell like food. I'm not sure if we are supposed to eat each other, or if a freakish, many-mouthed creature is going to plop down on our planet and start feasting. It has got me concerned.”

Funding has been a major stumbling block for Hadlock. Skeptics are quick to call his research anecdotal and hogwash. Useless, even. Hadlock says, “If you don't believe me, ask any adult male you know if his Tinker Teat isn't a little more swollen and tender than usual. Go on, give him a sniff. Then give me a call.”