I write alot of humorous stories on various topics. This one is from a few years ago and was written prior to my having the colectomy or the j-pouch. I guess I was contemplating the significance of my colon, social attitudes, etc. about, well...farting. Hopefully it will give you a giggle, despite the way things have changed for us j-pouchers.

Farts

An Exploration of the Social, Gynecological,
Archaeological and Historical Significance of the Fart
(or What Not to Pack for Your Journey Into the Afterlife)

My ISP is down and I’m feeling very bored, so I thought we’d talk about farts today.My Labrador’s doggy bed is situated a few feet from my desk and as I’ve been twiddling my thumbs here, wondering what the meaning of my existence could possibly be without the internet. I’ve come to several interesting conclusions.

Until now, I never realized how often my dog farts. As farts go, there is nothing that smells quite as putrid as a dog fart. Right now, I’m enveloped in an invisible cloud of farts. Have you ever noticed that dog farts smell an awful lot like whatever brand dog food that you feed the dog? It’s true. I can tell the difference between a cheap store brand fart, and a premium fart. If you have to live with a farting dog, I recommend premium food over the cheap stuff. Then there’s the difference between a good, premium, wet fart and a silent-but-deadly, cheap fart. If you’re expecting company, spring for the good dog food. The advantage of a premium, wet fart is in the sound effect. If you’re like me and not a big conversationalist, a nice wet fart does wonders for breaking the ice with house guests. And it’s a pretty effective way to offend and alienate the in-laws.

Cats fart, but almost always are much too dignified to fart out loud. I think cats have developed greater control of their sphincters, which may explain why a civilization as advanced and sophisticated as the Egyptians appreciated cats so much and included depictions of cats so often in their art and hieroglyphics. Cats were often mummified and left in the tombs to follow their owners into the afterlife. What self-respecting Egyptian king or queen would want to take a farting dog into the afterlife? If you’re heading toward the next life and want to make a good impression, leave your dog at home.

Goldfish apparently fart. I’ve had goldfish but I can’t say that I’ve seen or smelled a goldfish fart, but there was actually some research done not so long ago which concluded that goldfish use farts as a form of communication.

Fart communication isn’t such a revelation for me though, since my husband does that already. My husband is quite the accomplished farter. One of my most memorable experiences early in our marriage was the time that he caught me completely off guard, climbed on top of me and pulled the bedding over my head. For an instant I wondered if I had married a serial killer. His face became contorted, he grimaced and unloaded his canon! He held me under for a while but finally removed the covers after I screamed and gasped for air for several minutes. I think this behavior could be compared to pack behavior in dogs and possibly could be interpreted as a gesture of acceptance into his pack. Sweet.

Speaking of farting in bed, have you ever wondered if you fart out loud in your sleep? Humor me and say yes.

My husband snores like a freight train. Tucked ever so delicately between the snores is the occasional juicy, long, wet fart. Several months ago, I became worried about his breathing pattern while he slept and wondered if he might have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a dangerous condition that can cause a person to stop breathing in their sleep. I set about observing him as he slept and came to the conclusion that what I was really seeing wasn’t sleep apnea at all. Every time he paused and held his breath he was really just subconsciously savoring his most recent fart.

Have you ever noticed that men do that? They savor their farts the way a wine taster sips and savors each taste of wine. A man will fart, then puff his chest out and proclaim, “Now THAT was my finest fart yet!” Men actually rate their farts according to certain criteria. A long, dry fart is inferior to a long or short, wet fart. The wetter a fart sounds, the higher it ranks on the fart-o-meter. And let us not overlook the stink factor. A long, dry, incredibly stinky fart sometimes ranks much higher than a long, wet fart, simply because it smells so horribly overwhelming.

Finally, there’s the velocity factor. Men consider the ultimate fart to be one that is long, wet, incredibly stinky AND released at such a high velocity that it’s almost what you might call a projectile fart. Careful though, an actual projectile is a bad, bad thing. Trust me. You can tell when a man has just released an ultimate fart by what he says immediately after farting, such as, “Oh, honey did I get some on you?” or “By Golly, I’d better run that thing into the shop for service!”

I think men are conditioned from early childhood to believe that farting is more socially acceptable for them than it is for women. Let’s face it, we expect men to fart. That’s what they do. Men are fine with farting. Women, on the other hand, are conditioned to believe that farting is unladylike and unacceptable. A man will take his family for a nice drive in the country, lock the automatic window locks, roll up the windows and release a silent-but-deadly fart. Then he’ll smile and wait for the grip-of-death reaction, while ignoring the desperate pleas to unlock the windows. This control pleases the man. Men are dominant farters. It’s a rare woman who will do such a dastardly deed.

Women engage in clandestine farting. Women worry about farting. We might call this fart anxiety. For example, when a woman goes to the gynecologist, she hopes and prays that her appointment will fall on a day when she isn’t….ummm….gassy. For a woman, the worst case scenario goes something like this:

She arrives in the parking lot at the doctor’s office and realizes that she has to fart. “Uh oh”, she says to herself, hoping that the parking lot fart will be the end of it. Once inside, she sits in the waiting area where several other patients are waiting. As she reads a magazine, it hits her. She has to fart again. This is where the pre-fart surveillance comes in. She surveys the room. There are too many people sitting much too close to her. She wonders whether she can put a silencer on it. But, what if it smells REALLY bad?

With that, she steps into the hallway and walks around, pretending to be looking for an office a few doors down. She furtively glances left, then right. If the coast is clear, she farts. She quickly leaves the area so as not to be implicated in the fart. Hoping that will be the end ot it, she goes back to the waiting area and takes a seat. The nurse calls her name and takes her to the examining room, where she’s told to undress and put a gown on. At this point, she feels very vulnerable. While she’s waiting for the doctor to come in she has a horrible realization that she needs to fart again, but this time she can tell it’s going to be the BIG ONE. She considers farting before the doctor enters the room, but brushes that idea aside because she knows that he could walk in at any second and the whole room might become saturated with the smell of the fart.

Later, as the doctor examines her, he asks her if she’s nervous (as though her white knuckles and broken kneecaps weren’t a clue).

The doctor is completely unaware of her terror as she clenches every relevant muscle in her body and tries desperately not to fart while he’s examining her.

Ladies, this is our very own, special nightmare, isn’t it? And there’s nothing worse than a slow gynecologist.

Well, actually I went to a slow gynecologist one time and desperately had to fart. His nurse was a very prim and proper older lady who had an old fashioned 1950’s beehive hairdo and horn rimmed glasses. If you aren’t aware of this, a beehive hairdo combined with horn rimmed glasses is the ultimate form of gynecological intimidation. She stayed in the room during the entire examination. I’ve never experienced such terror as I did that day! There’s something about a beehive hairdo and horn rimmed glasses that sends a very strong subliminal “If You Fart, You Will Die” message.

I don’t think men have a worst case scenario when it comes to farting, primarily because I’m convinced that over time, men have developed an enormous ability to control their farts. Men can fart at will and practice deliberate farting so much that they have incredible muscle control and are better able to avoid farting in those rare situations when they prefer not to. It’s precisely that feeling of being fine with farting that has given men the advantage over women in terms of self-control.

Age seems to be the melting pot when it comes to farting. Many elderly people, regardless of gender, fart freely, loudly and often. Elderly people who engage in public farting often pretend to be so hard of hearing that even they cannot hear the noise or feel the physical sensation of their own farts. Whether you realized this or not, most people cannot fart and speak at the same time during a conversation without a brief pause, however elderly people who fart publicly never miss a beat. They are so smooth and so stealthy as they fart that their audience is left feeling confused about whether the pafootle they just heard actually was a fart or not. And yes, the proper term for a fart emitted by an elderly person is “pafootle.” This behavior is best described as Geriatric Ambivalent - Aggressive Farting Syndrome.

Despite the differences in the attitudes of men and women about farting, aging seems to be the great equalizer in our twilight years. Perhaps we call them the twilight years because using a light bulb brighter than 20 watts would cause an explosion.

Now there is one uncomfortable situation that many men and women have in common - the public restroom fart. You’re in a store or other public place when you realize that you are about to fart. As the fart rumbles through your colon, it becomes apparent that this isn’t just any fart. This one might be a record breaker. You head for the nearest public restroom and settle in for what you hope will be the relief you’re after. Just as you’re about to let go, someone enters the stall next to you. There are two choices here: (1) You could wait for the person the finish their business and leave the restroom while you try to hold it back, or (2) You could just throw caution and social stigma to the wind and set your fart free. If you decide to fart while the person is in the stall next to you, your next thoughts will turn to exit strategy. Most of us will quietly sit things out in our stall until the faucets quit running and we hear the door close. Then we’ll add a time buffer - just enough time to assure us that the person who heard us fart will not be outside the restroom door as we exit. This assures us that we won’t be identified as the farter. As we leave the restroom. we might even feign disgust, as though we just heard someone else fart in the restroom, further preventing us from being identified as the farter. In case you haven’t noticed yet, there is an almost commando aspect to farting and the methods that farters use to release their farts and disguise the fart event.

Women often complain that men don’t communicate effectively, but I’ll settle for whatever verbal communication I can get. If my husband and I were goldfish, I would be spending most of my time following him around, staring at his fecal tube in the hope that he’d fart an “I love you” now and then. Meanwhile, I would be angry that he didn’t notice how often I farted “I just want you to hold me!” Then we’d get into that whole communication issue, “Was that one bubble or two?” or “Honey, I didn’t get what you just said, could you fart that again?” Not to mention the misunderstandings from the occasional slip of the fart.

And there you have it, 2141 words about farts and farting, courtesy of MudSoup.

P.S. These days post-j-pouch, the gynecologist scene in this essay is a little different, Now I worry about shrapnel. As for marital communication, he seems to do all the talking. The public restroom scene has changed for me and I’ve learned to find a great deal of humor in it because there’s not a lot I can do to change or muffle the noise I make. I was in a restroom at Sam’s Club the other day. I hate the restroom there because there’s always dozens of women in every stall and standing around socializing by the sinks. I generally try to be as quiet as possible in public restrooms but it doesn’t always work if there’s too much propellant in the torpedo bay. So it was a bad day for gas and there I was sitting there between two women in the other stalls, while I could see more women milling around through the crack in the door. I’m pretty smart and realized that I could use timing to my advantage and try to time my release précisely when the noise from their flushing would be the loudest, therefore drowning any noise that I make out. Next thing I heard was “woosh!” followed by another loud “woosh!” I tried to go exactly between those wooshing sounds. I released my torpedos followed by the gas propellant. Ooops. My timing stinks! It sounded like woosh, my very loud rat-a-tat-tat-gurumph, and woosh! I had created a symphony and I was the tuba player. The restroom became completely silent. I sat there cupping my hand over my face trying to muffle my laughter. I really screwed that plan up.. Talk about overconfidence. I won’t try that again for a while. Then I reverted to exit strategy. Just enough time before exiting to assure that I couldn’t possibly be identified as the farter. Some things change and some things stay the same, I guess.

Very funny! You should add author to your list of occuptions! Thank you! Sue

This is hilarious! I want to copy it to my desktop and read it every time I need a laugh
ps: I have a cat - an Egyptian-looking jet black female cat who'd never audibly drop a clanger, but saunters past, tail in the air, swings her hips in the vicinity of an innocent and unsuspecting nose, and emits a haughty "Fthhh". If you don't actually die after them, you at least wish you would.

You don't have a blog do you? I would love to read it if you do so please let me know what it's called. And please, please post more of these! I love your style; you are so funny. I had to share this one with my boyfriend, he is also a writer and this sounds exactly like something he would write
Thanks for posting and PM me with the name of that blog if you have one. If you don't have one, you should and get these stories out there.

Hahaha I read the other day about boxers (the dog breed, not the guys with gloves) since my son, who's otherwise scared of dogs, told me he'd met a really sweet dog that had made him relax. It was a boxer, so I read about them after showing him which breed it was. On the list of common characteristics, it said "Flatulence." NO WAY. We don't need ANOTHER one in the family!

Oh my gosh! That was tooooo funny. I actually was laughing out loud! Whew, I needed that!

Jen M.

Please do more of that. That was the BEST after the bad day I just had.