"She think her shit don't stink" was what an acquaintance said about me on one fateful day two months ago. Hearing myself discussed, I inserted myself into the conversation and demanded to know what this was in reference to.

        Suitably embarrassed (at least), this acquaintance replied, "Well, it's true. You got this high and mighty attitude. You think you better than everyone else. You think your shit don't stink!"

        "But it doesn't," I replied, mystified.

        The other two conversationalists broke up laughing, but quickly became intrigued by my confused expression.

        "What is this about shit stinking?" I asked, truthfully puzzled. "My shit doesn't stink--is it supposed to?"

        "You're shittin' me," one of them said, to which I replied, "If that's so, tell me what you smell."

        The discussion went from flippant to awkward and hesitant over a period of a few minutes as they realized I was honestly asserting that my fecal matter did not have a foul odor.

        You have to understand that at the time, I had never connected bad smells to other people's bowel movements. I had simply never realized the two were related. Somehow, this had escaped me all through my childhood and young adult life. And, of course, my own "shit," as they put it, had never been known to smell bad.

        Scientifically minded, I set out to prove it. At first my partners in experimentation believed that I was either delusional or possessed of no sense of smell, but it quickly became obvious that neither of these was the case. After overcoming the initial disgust, many volunteers took a whiff of my poo, and not one could smell anything in the least distasteful.

        "It smells a little like flowers," one bystander commented, nonplussed.

        This was a bit of a revelation for me, you understand. Not only was I realizing that everyone else's shit actually did stink; I was also realizing that something was very different about me. Why didn't my turds smell like everyone else's?

        At first, the difference was blamed on my choice of diet. Perhaps I just wasn't eating the kinds of foods that made the stinkiest shits, they said. But after more experimentation, we realized that that was not the case either. I could eat beans and sauerkraut--apparently foods that created the vilest odors--and still produce stool that actually had a rather pleasant smell. One woman described my onion-inspired poop as smelling like a summer's day.

        Genetics were brought into the equation next. It was said that some people's craps just smelled to high heaven no matter what, the way some people automatically have worse body odor. This did not seem to be the case either, though, much to the chagrin of the scientists who by this time were crawling all over me like ants on a piece of Limburger. My parents and extended family were questioned, but no one could recall a family trait of pleasant-smelling doodoo. "I'll be the first to admit my shit stinks," my father said, "though now that I think about it, changing her diaper was a picnic."

        My mother added to that her testimony: "Changing her brother was like dealing with toxic waste, and yet hers smelled a lot like the baby powder we sprinkled on her bum directly afterwards. I never realized how strange that was."

        Scientists checked my chemical composition for weeks on end, giving me a rotating regimen of vitamin supplements and strange foods to consume. Nothing they fed me managed to create even the slightest hint of stench, and nothing they measured determined a reason for it. It was shortly after a doctor was found stealing samples of my stool that the whole case was determined "utterly ridiculous and pointless," and everyone realized they really didn't give a shit. Which was nice, because I was sick of having to do so to satisfy everyone else's curiosity.

        I went back to my quiet life of minding my own business and producing innocuous turds. Once in a while I wonder what my inoffensive bowel movements mean; does it indicate that I am cut out for something more? That I am above my fellow men because my shit doesn't stink? There are times when I am tempted to believe it's some sign of greatness, but then I come back to Earth. And I realize:

        My shit could stink and I'd still be better than everyone else.