GONE WITH THE WIND

Everyone has an embarrassing fart story.  Here's mine.

It was a dark, dreary, dismal November day.  Great billowing grey clouds hung ominously over the city like ... big ominous things.  I had an appointment with my dentist - a woman who, I am quite convinced, at one time worked for the Gestapo.  My visits usually followed the same routine - she would prise my mouth open with the jaws of life and proceed to prod and poke my teeth and gums with a vigour that would put her in the running for the Spanish Inquisition's Member Of The Month.  

The minute I sat in the patient's chair I felt the familiar rumblings of a fart making its way through my intestines.  Cursing the bean burrito I had eaten earlier, I squeezed my bum cheeks together and felt the fart dissipate.  Happy that I had averted a near disaster, and hoping that the fart had figured it had taken a wrong turn and had wandered off to find an alternate escape route, I returned my focus to the task at hand - surviving this torture session without (a) being left permanently scarred with a hideous grin that would make Batman's Joker go "Holy fuck!  What happened to YOU?", and (b) sending the dentist through the wall with a sharp blow to her solar plexus.  

The fart, however, was having none of it.  (Nunavut - a massive, sparsely populated territory of northern Canada.)  Realizing that it had been sent on a wild goose chase, it returned with a vengeance and proceeded to push against my bum.  I pressed myself into the chair and clamped my bum cheeks so tight that my eyes crossed.  The dentist, oblivious to the drama unfolding mere inches from her face, was chatting away about something, but I wasn't listening to her.  Every fiber of my being was focused on one thing - holding onto that fart until I could get outside and let it go.

"How's the family?", the dentist asked, pleasantly.  "What's your daughter's name again?".  "Jesus Christ", I hissed through gritted teeth, the effort to contain the fart making me almost lose consciousness.  She looked confused.  She was probably thinking I had recently become a born again Christian and had changed my daughter's name to advertise the fact.  I didn't care.  I wanted to grab her head and scream into her face "For the love of Christ, if I don't get out of here the whole place is going to BLOW!".

Finally she said "There.  We're all done".  I didn't budge. "You can get up now," she said.  That's easy for you to say, I thought, you're not holding back the force of an atomic bomb.  I cautiously slid off the chair and hobbled, bandy-legged to the reception desk to pay.  The door, mere feet away, beckoned.  If I can just hold on for another few minutes, I thought, I can limp out into the hall and let this fucker go and, hopefully, the force won't blow my bum half way up my back for a hump.

And then the receptionist, clearly a Satanist, said "Hold on.  I'll walk to the bus stop with you".  I was faced with a choice.  I could, with an effort that would surely garner me a place in the Guinness Book of Records, hold onto the fart for another few minutes, OR I could strangle the receptionist and take my chances explaining my motive to the police.  I opted for the former.  

I shuffled out into the hall like a 200 year-old man with hemorrhoids the size of the Himalayas.  The receptionist noticed and, in a caring tone asked "Are you ok?".  "It's nothing", I groaned, "It's an old war wound.  I'll walk it off."  "Oh", she said, "which war was that?"  "The war of 1812", I said, pinching my bum cheeks so tightly that I was convinced I had melded them together, leaving me forever with a unibum. 

 

The walk to the bus stop was sheer agony.  The fart was now pounding against my bum with what appeared to be a battering ram.  I was cross-eyed, knock-kneed, and bent over from the physical effort of holding it captive.  I was sweating profusely.  Tears of pure misery stained my face.  I grabbed onto the side of the bus stop for support.  

The bus arrived like a gift from the gods.  "Isn't this your bus?", the receptionist asked, getting on.  "I'll wait for the next one", I muttered, "this one is full", although clearly there were only four people on it, including the driver.  The bus took off.  I would have waved but rigor mortis had set in.

At last, I thought, crying tears of joy, I can let this go.  I relaxed my bum and waited.  The fart took off like a bat out of Hell.  It exploded with a force that set off car alarms a block away and caused a tidal wave in Sumatra.  It ripped a hole through my knickers and my jeans and registered on the Richter Scale. What was left of my bum was hanging in tatters.  But I was free!  I heaved a great sigh of relief. 

It was only then that it occurred to me to look behind me.  I turned around and there, sitting behind me, her face directly in the path of the blast, sat a woman.  Her eyes bulged.  Her mouth hung open in shock.  Her hair was standing on end.  Her eyebrows were burned off.  Her face was blackened.  I knew for sure she would never play the piano again.  We looked at each other.  Well, I looked at her.  I'm not sure that she could see anything because her eyes had glazed over.  The heady aroma of methane and bean burrito hung in the air.

I smiled weakly and said "At least the rain held off".  And then I ran off down the street, the sound of an approaching ambulance ringing in my ears.