Laughing and Farting
August 10, 2003

More fart humor. Yeah, so what? I have to appeal to a broad audience…and guess what? Nine out of ten broad audiences agree that fart humor = funny. Deal.

Set the Wayback Machine, Mr. Peabody, we're heading back to 1997. Way back before I met Mrs. Bastard, when I was still living in Maryland, I was working an office job type thing for a kinda small company in Hunt Valley, north of Baltimore. Hunt Valley is Baltimore's version of Beverly Hills: Only the rich and beautiful people live there. The company isn't there anymore (surprise!) but that's not important right now and my story had no part in their ultimate demise. I hope.

The men's room in this company's main office building only had 2 stalls. (That's how I judge the size and worth of a company...the number of stalls in the head. Stock prices don't mean a damn thing to me.) Everyday, like clockwork, I'd hit the crapper right after lunch. If I was lucky, there wouldn't be anybody in there, since I usually took lunch earlier than my co-workers, thus everyone else is at lunch when I am already done. Ya following me so far, Einstein? So there I am, sitting on the can after lunch one day, enjoying my time alone. Someone comes in and takes the other stall. Oh great. Now I have to pretend I'm not here. What is it about public restrooms? People, especially uptight and stressed-out office worker types, are afraid or ashamed of their bodily functions. It's an old phrase, but it is true, "You shit like I do!" They are human, you are human, he is human, and so is she. We all shit. It's no secret. So what's with the awkward silences? Relax, people…what the fuck, it's just poop.

So, anyway...I recognized who it was by peering through the space between the door and the wall. You all know that trick, it's a defense mechanism: you gotta see who's out there, incase they have a knife and they wanna kill you when you exit the shitter. Yeah, I've read way too many stories about serial killers, gimme a break, ok?

My visitor was a guy I sat a few cubes away from in the office. He was one of those uptight-stressed-out-really-stuffy-not-a-fun-person, types of people. I had Taco Bell for lunch that day. (I'll never learn to stay away from that dog food.)

He plops down on his bowl and I hear him open the paper, so he's gonna be here a while. Great. Well…now I begin wondering if he is checking out my shoes from under the stall and does he know what kind of shoes I wear. Does he know who is in the other stall? Oh what do I care anyway? That's when it happened. I farted. Loudly. It happened so quickly I didn't have a chance to squeeze my sphincter and maybe muffle or control the noise. And because I'm a little kid easily amused by poop and fart humor, I started to snicker. Then another fart slipped out. I tried to suppress a giggle. The force of me clinching to suppress laughter caused yet another fart, which then caused me to laugh, which then caused me to fart again, which then caused me to laugh more, which then caused me to fart again. The more I farted, the more I laughed. The more I laughed, the more I farted! I couldn't stop EITHER activity! All I could do was sit there and laugh and fart, fart and laugh, laugh and fart, on and on and on. This went on for a solid 5 minutes. At one point I tried to speak, because I felt like something needed to be said. I'm not sure what I was going to say, but I'm sure it would have been profound and probably one day carved into marble on the memorial that would one day be built in my honor. I never did get to speak, because I was so out of breath from all the laughing. All I managed to get out was a feeble, "help." Which made me laugh even more.

Laughing and farting, farting and laughing…I'm such a damn child.