English Settlement by XTC is one of my favorite albums, and it continues to provide for me in my old age. In fact, it inspired today’s update. I was listening to it at work a few nights ago, and the song “Senses Working Overtime” caused me to start thinking about the five senses, and which one I’d give up, if I was forced to choose.
Weird, I know. But I work ten hour shifts, and things start to go wonky near the end…
So, let’s forget about the feasibility of such a premise, and focus on the pros and cons of each sense. Then, once the evidence has been examined, we can make a final choice on which would be the easiest to do without. OK? OK.
I’ll list them as XTC does…
See I don’t believe too many people would choose to give this one up; it’s a pretty kick-ass sense, all things considered. Sure, people can function without it, but I don’t anticipate many volunteers.
If we can see, we can use the internet and watch TV and make sure our “friends” haven’t slipped a cow ball into our bowl of beef stew. We can appreciate the beauty (or otherwise) of our surroundings, watch a baseball game on a warm June evening, and play the Wal-Mart Game.
And it’s also the one I worry about the most. My eyesight isn’t the greatest, and I’m concerned that they’ll be measuring me for a service animal in the not-too-distant future. How will I write? How will I read? I don’t have anywhere near the patience required to learn new methods.
You know how everybody who’s dealt with some sort of disability is always called “courageous?” Well, that won’t be me. My obituary will read “Later in life Jeff dealt with his blindness angrily and disgracefully, causing family members to fantasize about smothering him with a pillow. It certainly would’ve been easy to sneak up on the prick…”
So yeah, I’m quite partial to See.
Hear This is the second of the Big Two, another superpower in the world of human perception.
Hearing allows us to easily communicate with one another, enjoy music and radio programs, and submerge ourselves in the world at large. Loss of hearing, I believe, would be quite isolating, and there’s no way I’d check that box on the Give Up a Sense! card. (WTF?)
I don’t have any concerns about losing my hearing, but my ears aren’t the greatest. Oh, they function reasonably well, but they’re prone to problems. It’s something I inherited from my father, and which I’ve passed on to my own son. How cool is that?
My ears seal-off, you see, and I end up walking around in a weird fog for a few days. It’s awful, and I’ve been dealing with it all my life. My dad calls it “swimmer’s ear,” but I don’t think that’s completely accurate. I’ve been to doctors, and it has something to do with the tubing, and whatnot. Our ear tubes are a little narrower than the average, and there’s an issue with fluid…
People who don’t deal with this periodic sealing-off always believe it has something to do with earwax. “You need to have the wax blasted out of there…” they say in the tone of an expert. But they don’t know what they’re talking about, and I hate them oh so much.
Anyway… just having my hearing limited for a few days sucks more than you might think, and I’ll be holding on to this one, thank you very much. I’m quite protective of Hear.
Smell I could’ve gone without this one a couple of weekends ago, when I attended a swim meet in Wilkes-Barre. It was roughly a thousand degrees inside that facility, and somebody’s pits were alive with bacterial activity. Fizzing, in fact. Blecch.
But, on the other hand, I love the smell of cookies baking in the oven. And the way it smells outside on a spring morning. And new electronics straight out of the box. I also enjoy the smell of a recently-compressed skunk sac, while driving. What of it?
However, I consider this to be one of the lesser senses. I know a person who had brain surgery a few years ago, and claims to have lost her sense of smell, completely. It’s not ideal, she says, but it’s also not the end of the world.
This one is important, but I think it ranks far below the Big Two. Am I wrong?
Touch I’m unclear on this one. Touch? Does that mean, simply, that when you touch something with your hand or feet or whatever, you can’t feel it? Well, that would be pretty weird, but I think I could deal with it.
I’m probably missing something, but I’m going to have to choose this sense as the one I’d sacrifice. I’ve never heard of someone losing their sense of touch. Have you? Will that earn you a handicap placard? How about a telethon? I wouldn’t think so.
Help me out with this one, won’t you? It seems like a slam-dunk, so I’m probably not thinking of something important. Touch? Ha! I laugh in your face… until further notice.
Taste Are you kidding?! This is number three in my world. I mean, seriously. To never again taste a number one with cheese, no pickles, and a Coke? Shit! Will somebody please hold me?
And the golden elixir!
No way. Taste is one of my “protected players,” and everyone can just move along now. That thought needs to be perished from the world’s mind. I mean, Taste is largely responsible for me being able to maintain my powerful upper body. And that’s very important to me…
Now it’s your turn. In the comments section, please tell us which sense you’d give up, if you were forced to choose one. Also, where did I go wrong in my scientific analysis? My deep, considered analysis?
Thanks for you input on this important matter, and I’ll see you guys next time.
Have a great day, boys and girls.
first 🙂
Two!
Smell would have to be the one to go. Can’t imagine losing any of the other four.
I know people that have given up their sense of humor… also their sense of perspective is ofter quite damaged.
I’m like a dog… there are only a few bad smells but there sure are a lot of interesting smells.
Touch would have to be the one if it HAD to be one… but does that mean I wouldn’t be “sensitive” any more in my dirty places? Well I guess I’ll be there eventually anyways so why not…
oh and btw – winning
http://thechive.com/2011/03/10/newest-charlie-sheen-auto-tune-winning-it-will-get-stuck-in-your-head-video/
If you couldn’t feel you couldn’t have sex…
Smell would be mine.
Yeah! Cannot believe JEFF would miss this obvious void with loss of touch…
Jeff???
without touch, you could step on a nail and only notice it when it the gangarine sets in and starts to smell.
I think a few people have this disorder, and they usually don’t live very long. your body uses this to help you protect your body.
If I were to choose, I would sacrifice smell but people tell me that if that goes, then so does taste. I may have to reconsider if that’s really the case.
I had bad bad sinus problems when I was younger, and it’s true – when you lose your sense of smell, you also lose taste (except for salty, at least for me). Not worth it.
Isn’t this disorder called ‘leprosy’?
When I thought of touch I immediately thought of sex. No thanks. I guess I’d go with smell. Fuck smell, it’s far less important than the others.
“Do you ever notice that your own farts smell ok?” – George Carlin
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…..
Sight and hearing have to stay, and without a sense of smell you wouldn’t be able to taste, so I’m going with touch.
It’d probably be a bitch at first, but I think you’d get used to it.
Touch. One of my friends told me that if you lay on your dick until it’s numb, it feels like you’re jacking off someone else. I think he may have something backwards.
LOL!!!!!
Wow, that was a good one. Still smirking like a school girl 10 minutes later…
That’s one of the most awesome things I’ve read, seen, or heard in a while.
I wonder if it works with other things as well? If I lay on my wife until she’s numb, will it feel like I’m fucking someone else? HAHAHA!
I doubt that would make a difference with my wife.
With no smell, might as well toss out taste too. So those two have to stay.
Gotta have sight and sound.
I’m going with touch as a hand thing. I’ve never heard of someone touching something with their inner thigh. So with that, I’ll sacrifice touch. I don’t have to feel my wife’s titties when doing her, seeing me touch them works fine. Plus I know a guy paralyized from the waist down and he can till get off with his other senses when his wife does him.
If you are telling the truth. I am curious to know more
Citizen X, I’ve been off the net and just saw your inquiry. I don’t figure you were curious about my sexual-visual experiences, but as for my buddy, his junk still works. He can have both psychogenic erections and reflex erections. Orgasm after paralysis is possible and is less physical, meaning not as focused on the genitals and more a state of mind.
He also says viagra, etc makes it less of a struggle to keep it up once he gets it up.
I’m going to have to go with smell provided I don’t lose to much of my ability to taste. I’ll have to start dating the leftovers though, wouldn’t want to eat any tainted ham salad.
heh…taint
heh smells like ham
heh salad as in tossing
yes I am 12
Toss up between smell and taste, but I think I’d go with smell. How far are we going, anyway? like completely lose all sense of smell? I don’t think it would be so bad. Think of all the nasty stuff you wouldn’t smell anymore, like farts and vomit and overcooked fish.
When I had my wisdom teeth out they apparently damaged a nreve that’s close by and pretty important. After a few days later I realized I could not taste anything sour. You know those mega warhead sour candies? I could taste the sugar in them but absolutely could not taste the sour in the sour apple. Weird shit, man. Definitely would not want to go without taste.
Sight is precious to me.
Starting at about 43 or so, I’ve gone from being near-sighted with a low cost mild “single” prescription set of glasses to needing glasses with “progressive” lenses. Progressive lenses are expensive!
Taste & smell seem to be tied into one another; I’m not sure that losing one wouldn’t affect the other.
It’s a toss-up between hearing & touch for me.
Eye Chick Aqua checking in…. some peoples eyesight is so bad from things like syphilis and parasites(bugs in the eyeballs) it is better to start using progressive lenses when you barely need them, they are easier to get used to later when you are blinder than a bat. Though I do use this figuratively considering in a lot of cases if you are REAL blind such as cataracts and such you can get a new set of lenses IN your eye that makes distance glasses obsolete. All you need then is a few billion cheap readers because yes, you WILL lose them like popcorn in a movie theater, you know, you get up at the end look down and say WTH did I have a badger snorfuling through mah bukkit?
Me? I wouldn’t want to loose my sense of touch. I actually have lost it in the first few fingers of my left hand for being zapped by a 220 line. So I have lost bits off the end of my fingers and broken then without knowing it.
I worked with disabled kids in high school and I don’t know what the disorder was called but he had a reversal of touch if you will, anything that touched him caused extreme pain, on his worst days he would come to school wearing only a few blankets like a toga. His parents couldn’t hug him, he had to be few through the nose as a baby….his mind was relatively OK so they hoped with repetitive therapy and some surgeries to make it better. But Man….. I wouldn’t want that one.
I too enjoy the smell of a skunk while driving. It smells like brewing coffee to me. The girlfriend thinks that I’m nuts. But getting sprayed by a skunk is a whole other story. Too concentrated, man!
I thought I was the only one—my one woman crusade to bring back what of it.” Awesome to see you use it. And taste. Might drop some pounds
Farewell, taste! Sure it would suck not being able to enjoy three McDoubles after a night of drinking. But it’ll be much easier to lose weight when I can’t taste the difference between those McDoubles and a salad. And it’ll be much cheaper when I can’t taste the difference between top-shelf vodka and Mr. Boston.
The only downfall is that you’d have to be very careful to avoid spoiled food, since you couldn’t taste that it had gone bad.
I seen a kid on one of those daytime shows like Maury or something and she had no sense of touch. She had bitten all her fingertips off because she couldn’t feel it and would burn herself constantly. I’m pretty clumsy so I would probably die shortly after losing my sense of touch. I would inadvertently chop off a finger or burn myself down to the muscle or some such nonsense.
I would have to go with smell. I know a guy who has no sense of smell and he says he can taste food still. Of course he was born that way so what he considers taste and what I consider taste could be two totally different things. I have been on a medication for a while that fucks with my sense of taste and its been annoying but nothing I can’t live with. Food that use to taste awesome is just okay now.
So, she’d be eating a sandwich, or whatever, and just keep going, all the way to the wrist? Yeah, that’s a problem.
Hahahaha. That made me snort laugh.
Hmmm…this sandwich tastes just like BLOOD! I’m thinkin’ it wouldn’t take too long to figure that one out. But maybe it was a really good sandwich…or something.
Well, you actually could not feel yourself biting your own fingers, plus not being able to actually feel yourself holding the sandwich is the other problem. That would be a very weird feeling. You couldn’t even feel your feet touching the ground. Fuck that.
Maybe no sense of touch would also bite off your tongue and swallow that as well. Then there goes taste.
Dang that’s funny!!!
I lost my senses of smell and taste 7 years ago when we moved in to a big old house that we worked on for 7 years and then moved out. I always blamed my loss on the house but come to find out it’s my dog that we got 7 years ago when we moved to the new house. Who’da thunk it? So I am getting allergy shots because I will not get rid of my puppy dog!!! Allergic to my dog? TOO FREAKIN’ BAD! He ain’t goin’ nowhere!!!
As I have noted here before I am monocular. That is only partially true. I can see out of the left one just fine but the right one is constantly checking that I am not being out-flanked. (Don’t worry though, I will always sit on your left and you won’t notice). This causes me to see two of everything. So I could do without that part.
That leaves me with half a sense to give up. I could give up half a sense of touch without too much trouble.
I would kill my sense of smell, which would also eliminate most of my taste, buy the others are too important to me.
I also enjoy runned over skunk. Everyone thinks I’m nuts, but I’ve been acclimated to it. From Pre-school to 1st grade, I went to school that had a family of skunks living under the building.
Diabeetus can cause numbness in the hands and feet causing damage to these parts to go unnoticed. Injuries can get all gnarly and parts may have to be amputated. That’s what you are missing with touch/feel.
I went to a diabeetus foot specialist a week ago. I’m fine myself; it was really just a benchmarking exercise.
According to him, 1 in 6 diabetics will lose something… That seemed really high but maybe I’m in denial.
Then he brought out the photo album, With how bad some of the people’s feet looked, it’s now a blessing that they can’t feel anything. Nasty.
How are we losing these senses when we check the box?
Is there some guy with a melon-baller waiting around to jump at the chance of scooping out the part of my brain that registers Touch?
Of, is it some sort of lazer (Yeah, “lazer”. Fuck you.) to the ear drum type of situation?
Or
There seems to be no long-term effects to my having lost my sense of decency.
But I’d go with taste next and maybe I wouldn’t stuff so much down my cake hole.
If you lost your sense of touch, you could not tell if you had been injured in any way… you could be burned, stabbed, cut, or even your hand crushed and you would never notice unless you physically saw the injury…
So by far my choice would be smell.. the least impact on ones life, though not being able to smell smoke or oil, etc.. could be hazardous, but not nearly as much as losing another sense..
I also immediately thought of having to say goodbye to sex when you stated that touch would be the first choice to lose. What would be the sense of living with no hope of sex? Sure us married guys go without sex all the time but we always HOPE that it will change. What would be left to live for? Man, I just can’t get my brain to grasp the idea of having no more hope.
So I guess for me it woudl be hearing. There’s a lot of yapping that I could do without, and I’m not all that big on music like yourself so for me that one would do the trick.
I’d give up hearing so I wouldn’t have to listen to all this office gossip bullshit Or the sound of the entire world beeping. Or the overbearing bitch on line at the drugstore yammering into her cell phone. Or that ear splitting “WHOO HOO” from the asshole tourists lined up outside of Good Morning America or the Today show. Or the buzzing of bees that puts me into an arm flailing tizzy.
Smell. My sense of smell is not that great to begin with, I can smell skunk, and like others, quite like the smell, but often, I don’t even detect it when others are already in the gag phase. So smell it is.
Eye sight it too important. Everything I like doing requires those eyes be functional.
Can we pick more than one? Because I’d want to be a pinball wizard like “Tommy.”
They could also re-name “Helen Keller” jokes after you.
Frankly, though, I’d prefer to keep them all. At this time.
Anybody else think the “Touch” icon looks like a dick?
It’s what I’d imagine a dick full of Viagra would resemble. Just sayin’.
…and it looks a bit top heavy with it leaning to the left. Must be screwing around corners.
It’s excited because that tongue is getting PRETTY close.
Maybe it’s for hitting the “G Spot”. Seems more reasonable than screwing around corners. But what do I know?
Why yes…yes it does. Good eye.
Boy, that’s a toughy. I’d have to say touch if it means “fingertip”. If it means giving up Vodie-o-doe then forget it.
I could live without any of the five senses as long as I have my Blizzak tires.
You’d want to keep touch so you could feel for tread wear. I could go on and on about the dangers of improper tread wear….
Yes…Yes, I determine my self-worth by the depth of my tread!
I’ll be the motherfucker going 90 in snow that is ass deep, while the rest of you fools are stuck in the ditch, drinking your own piss and eating shoe leather. Everybody in town knows me as badass tire boy. I give rides to the president.
I hate this question. I never know….When this question has arose, I’ve always said ‘taste’ because I guess I’d rather have everything taste like cardboard then be blind or deaf. But then I’d still be able to smell, and being able to smell helps you taste, so would I have to lose both?
Couldn’t give up touch cuz I just love the fell of a women breasts!
Probably could get along just fine without the sense of smell as most of the time I don’t want to smell it.
I am just going to assume you have a shiny willy.
Yes…before he washes off the go-go juice.
bikerchick…
I don’t get out as much as you do, although, there was a time…
In any case, I’m not entirely familiar with the language you young people use these days. Does the go-go juice help with whatever the Vodie-o-doe is? As a chaser? As an accompanyment? As a high-test lubricant? I just want to be prepared in the unlikely event someone asks me about it at a party. Thanks in advance. I will continue to share the road.
jtb
To my nearest recollection, a shiny willy is an English dish consisting of long sausages sauteed in lard, so I was guessing go-go juice is some kind of fancy lard, but sometimes guessing is dangerous, thus my plea to you. Thanks again.
jtb
Vodie-o-doe = SEX
go-go juice = lube of choice
You can now impress everyone at the party with your new found knowledge!
I also don’t get out much, and have been inundated by the secrest watching too much TV. That last quote sounds to me like a mash-up of Get Smart and Inspector Gadget.
heh – inspect her gadget.
I’m just glad we two are not confused willy.
I lost my sense of smell after having a brain tumor and going through years of chemo. I don’t miss it at all, and I enjoy France a lot more. I also lost the sense of touch in both hands, both feet and my right shoulder and neck. But I did gain a huge sense of self importance.
“and I enjoy France a lot more” LMAO!
I’d give up my sense of accomplishment.
That’s sad. lol
sight = independence (driving, taking the bus without having to trust strangers, doing your own shopping)
hearing = clear communication
touch = safety (hot stove, sharp things) and pleasure (warm hug, sex, petting a soft critter)
smell = pleasure (yummy food, nice flowers) and displeasure (garbage, skunk, a fart)
taste = pleasure (yummy food) and displeasure (gross medicine)
I’d have to give up smell or taste. I value my independence and ability to communicate with most people too much to give those up, and I am clumsy enough that lacking the ability to feel pain could be dangerous (and I like sex). If I only lost taste I could still smell good food, if I only lost smell, I could still sort of enjoy food.
Confirmed tonight that hearing is on the “no way” list for me. Went to an amazing concert; Enter The Haggis is incredible live!
With a name like that, how bad can they be? I’m thinking “not very”, and you’re saying “the opposite of”.
.
sex and petting a soft critter? Redundant?
In certain circles, sure!
Taste/smell would be easy losses.
I think you’re overlooking the importance of touch Jeff. It would affect tons of things, holding a can, knowing if you retardedly picked up something hot and were in fact on fire. Even writing would be awkward. No touch, no pressure sense as well. I picture crushing a glass in your hand easily without realizing.
Taste+smell(always heard they go hand in hand) are more like luxuries than necessities. I am totally unable to think of any life threatening situations where humans really need those two senses. Fire comes to mind, but I’ve never heard of anyone who smelled it before anything else. Skunk perhaps? Although that one’s a rarity in some parts and hardly life threatening. Electronics are the only thing I can think of where scent can be helpful and that’s only in the case of something burning up internally. I’ve caught that smell in time to save some items, but even that one’s a stretch…usually if ya smell that unique scent it’s too late.
“Courageous”? Bullshit – you’re only courageous if you have a choice.
I don’t want to lose any senses, but b-girl’s logic is inexorable. I’ll have to agree: smell or taste.
And I really liked XTC back in the day. Why don’t I have any of their albums? I think that needs fixin’. Just like if one had no Mojo Nixon.
.
Sight is a must have; like Jeff I have bad eyesight if uncorrected and can’t imagine not seeing.
Touch: As stated above its an absolute
Taste: What would be the point.
Smell: While it seems lovely to avoid nasty odors, conversely you could be walking through a pile of dog poo and think it was mud so I am ranking it 4th.
I would be willing to give up hearing. Sure I’d miss the gentle music of waves against the shore and chirping birds but I’d be giving up cell phones and crying babies on airplanes.
I lost my sense of outrage during 35 years in corporate America, so you could say I already gave at the office. There’s a little left of my sense of decency, and I retain a smattering of sense of self. I work daily to retain my sense of humor. I pray the last to go will be my sense of wonder. I hope that lasts as long as my Blizzaks, but, I tell you, those fuckers never wear out.
jtb
Jeff, I always want to take full responsibility for my writing, so I’d like to make it clear that the tire reference was wrenched out of me by Chuck and WB. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
jtb
Just like a liberal to not take any personal responsability. 🙂 But I digress, Ed started it!
Heh!
See how your so-called friends will throw you under the bus?
I’ve been no angel when it comes to the use of illegal drugs, especially in a younger day; but I’ve never taken a drug, or any combination of drugs, which would enable me to make it entirely through the video in Further Evidence. At this time.
jtb
jtb,
I only watched the video based on your comment, and I have to agree. I don’t understand the language, yet I can see how bad the lip-synching is. I’m a worse dancer than that guy, which is why I don’t dance. Oh, the humanity.
I want my minute and 24 seconds back (which is as far as I was able to get).
.
Chill…
Modesty is fine up to a point, but saying you don’t dance as well as this fellow is like saying Hellen Keller whipped your ass in the karaoke contest.
I took my first wife dancing at a very fancy nightclub and dumped her right on her ass on the sunken dancefloor during one of my trick rumba steps, and I’m STILL a better dancer than the boob in the video. I’m sure you are too. If there are any women you’d like to dump on the floor, I’d be happy to teach you to rumba.
jtb
I especially like the little ‘dance move’ where he seems to get stuck in the bushes.
Would give up sense of smell or taste before touch. Hubby has very high resistance to pain. Got a 3rd degree burn on his foot and argued when I told him he had to go to the ER. Never took a single pain med. He feels little pains, but not the biggies.
I’d like to remind the reporters that our esteemed host indicated that we could forget about the feasibility of such a premise. Thus, I am choosing smell with the knowledge that the sense of taste will stay intact for the purposes of this excersise.
sight – necessary for driving and important for sex
hearing – necessary for music and a welcome addition to sex
touch – necessary for safety and sex
Which leaves us with smell and taste. While I love the smell of food, I think I prefer to taste it than to smell it. I know I prefer the taste of sex than the smell…
I would want to lose my sense of hearing and sight, as well as the ability to talk.
Then I can be just like that pinball-playing Tommy guy.
I lost touch a few years ago.
Good one. 🙂
I’d go with hearing. New music sucks, I know the old stuff by heart. No more hearing the neighbor’s dog bark through the night, inane conversations to overhear on the plane, I won’t have to get up in the middle of the night for a crying baby.
If you’re difficult to communicate with, people will leave you the fuck alone!!!!!!!!!!!
Because we are talking about the five senses and some say they could do without a sense of taste, here is a question for all the people in North Carolina who think BBQ sauce should taste like vinegar:
The fuck is wrong with you?
I’ve been here for 16 years and STILL don’t understand it. Give me Memphis Style ANY day!
Memphis style ribs, no question – they are the best EVER. As for sauce, BBQ should be about the meat, not the ketchup. No sauce for me. Although as a native New Yorker, I’m not actually qualified to have an opinion. As a web forum (and former usenet) denizen, I feel free to offer one anyway.
.
Actually I prefer a good dry rub. I have my own recipe. But when I use a sauce I prefer a sweet one.
Memphis style (as I understand it) involves a dry rub on a rack of ribs trimmed in the “St. Louis style”, which is then hot-smoked for several hours to make “barbecue”, as they call it.
In other words, I agree. Although I will still forgo the sauce when consumption time arrives.
This is a “me too” post. Flame amongst yourselves.
.
This is a ‘No Flame Zone’. Unless you want to burn your Blizzaks. MMMMMM…that smoky tread smell.
Chuck’s right. This remains a no flame zone unless you want to “light up” those Blizzaks in the all-snow quarter mile. The Blizzaks are so remarkable, they frequently arrive at the quarter mark slightly before the vehicle.
jtb
Its that good!
Always thought that if you lost the sense of smell, the sense of taste goes with it.
I Could never do without my sense of smell. Aromatherpay works for me. If my surroundings smell well, it changes my whole mood for the better.
I will forego hearing since I am at half wattage anyway
I have a phone and a pillow that vibrates if there is a house fire.
Yes, I would miss music and my favorite podcasts
but I cannot feasibly give up any other sense
My friend has bad taste
Music, clothes, colone…all bad
He cannot be touched
Late to the party here but then again…I lost my sense of urgency a while back.