No Gas Shortage Here

Just a few lines about flatus, it’s a subject that invariably comes up when we start telling tales of our family’s past. My brother tells of the time he was playing volley ball at the Community Center in Indian Head, Pennsylvania. He brags that he passed gas and cleared the large gymnasium area. He said, “Even though someone rips one and won’t confess, I’ll claim it. Why waste it?”

Now, my dad would do things to avoid having an accusing finger pointed at him. I can remember when we were out shopping and Dad would allow one to pop out with an earful of noise. We all knew it was him when he would shuffle along scuffing his shoes to pretend that it was his shoes that made the sound that we’d heard and not otherwise.

The next story is about my son. He was working at a parcel shipping and handling company at the time. The night before he was going to work, I made red beans and rice with venison. Both were flatus inducing ingredients. His shift was later in the morning and he fried a couple of eggs for breakfast. When he came home from work, he said, “Dad, I cleared a trailer today,” and I believed him. The combination of the sulfur egg aroma mingling with the power of the beans and venison would have made almost fatal fumes. I have always wondered what the workers though when that trailer was opened to be unloaded at its destination.

The last story I will mention is about a nephew. He would hold his offering until he walked through a set of double doors at a store. As the first door would close behind him, he’d unload before the second door would close, trapping the odor between the doors in the dead air space. He would walk to the side close by and wait, like a puma laying in ambush. Most people would shrink from the assault as if they had walked into a wall.

Another time his wife was the victim. They were shopping and they separated for a bit to meet in another area of the store later. About ten minutes later, she wandered toward that area and was hit with the aroma like a brick between the eyes. All she could do was to wave her hands to fan it away and mumble, “Oh. Lord.” She knew that she was on the trail of her husband..