I went to school one day and was headed to class. Outside the classroom I ran into the, well, weird kid. He was nice enough and it was a small enough town that no one bullied him too much (there were only about 20 kids in my whole grade). He comes up to me and I see that he had a small thermos in his hand. Smiling, he opens the thermos and tipped it towards me, telling me to "smell this."

I took a small sniff and it felt like hat pins were being shoved up both of my nostrils. It was an intense pain. I heard him say "it's ammonia." That's where my memory of this incident ends, and the whole memory is rather vague except for the pain.

I guess my parents or teachers never found out, because I don't recall anything exciting happening afterwards. It wasn't uncommon for us Montana kids to not tell adults about injuries/fights/etc.

It took me YEARS to realize that I barely had a sense of smell, and I'm almost 40 and married now. My wife (who has a sharp sense of smell) has finally figured out to stop asking me if I "can smell that," because the answer is invariably no.

So in my older years I wonder what the heck that kid was doing with a thermos of ammonia. I know some may theorize meth production, but this was in the early 80s and I don't know if there was a meth problem back then.

My only other memory of that kid is that he was held back. He was the only kid held back. And the teacher (there was only one teacher per grade) announced in front of the class that he was being held back.

The teacher wasn't being mean. It was a very very small town, and the teacher wanted everyone to know ahead of time that one of the 20 kids would not be a fourth grader, but would remain a third grader. He was trying to frame the kid's failure in the best possible way.

TL;DR - Kid gave me anosmia from pure ammonia.

Anosmia = lack of a sense of smell