I am a farter. In fact, I am an inveterate farter, a professional farter, a farter par excellence… Yup, I fart, and I am proud of it!
There'll be none of those foofy euphemisms for me, either, (Not to discount Denholm Elliot’s great line from Trading Places though; “No son, it gives me wind, something terrible.”), there’ll be no “Did you toot?” or “did somebody poof?” here; they’re farts, I farted, I am a champeen fartist, and that’s that.
I am also an avowed public farter. I believe in farting on the street, in stores, at work, pretty much wherever I can get away with it and some places I can’t.
I ripped an excellent reverberating fart on a wooden pew, in church, on Christmas Eve in 2000 that sent my then 7 year old son into paroxysms of laughter and prompted Father Brian to lean in as he passed during the processional and say, “I heard that!” That was a very good fart, indeed.
In my early days, when I pretty much lived on beer, eggs, cheese, and Mexican food, my farts had true power; knee buckling, eye squinting, room clearing power. They were a weapon of terrible purpose that I used with relative abandon...
In 1987, while performing a runway inspection at Bellingham International Airport, with an MD-80 turning base to final, I ripped a legendary Death Fart, causing my partner to bail out of the truck, on the runway, going 15 miles an hour; his last words were, “I don’t care, I’ve got to get out!” That too was a fine fart.
My boss back then, who was a bit of a milquetoast, took the brunt of many an SBD, or Silent But Deadly fart, (Not it’s real name; I’ll explain further on). I’d walk into his office, ask how he was, remain long enough to release the Death From Below and leave, and then wait gleefully for the eruption. Wait for it, wait for it… “Godammit Atwater! That’s awful, damnit!!! Priceless…
In the late 80’s, I personally destroyed the Leavenworth, Washington Safeway store with what was undoubtedly the best Death Fart of my illustrious career. It was released in the beer section. I knew what I had done, and quickly grabbed a six pack of pukers, (16 oz. Rainiers in bottles), and moved away from the rapidly expanding green cloud. The first victims were a little bandy rooster of a logger guy with a wife who easily ran 300 pounds and obviously would not be able to move quickly, even if her life depended on it. He hit the cloud first and I watched as his head snapped back and a look of pure revulsion washed over his shriven features; “Jesus Christ, somebody died!” he croaked, right before it got him. His poor wife never had a chance. I paid for the beer with tears streaming down my cheeks, and in response to the cute cashier’s question answered, “Oh, nothing, just don’t go back there for a while.” I understand that six died in that event, including two would be rescuers who were overcome by fumes before they realized they’d need SCBAs…
Nowadays, I eat better and carouse less, so I don’t very often have the piquancy I used to wield, but what I’ve lost in power I’ve compensated for with musicality. The best part of the public fart, of course, is getting away with it, even when it’s a real rumbling faduka of a blast. An ex of mine was an excellent farter, and she was also cute and had big blue eyes. She could rip one in public, turn and look at me and say “Eben, really! That lacks charm!” wink, and walk off. Everybody heard it, and of course, everybody believed her. Having never been cute, I’ve had to resort to sneakiness and humor, and they both work fine for me. The humor I borrow unabashedly from Steve Martin’s old routine; you know, you’re with the family at Applebee’s, the dining room is crowded and boisterous on a Friday night, you’re packed into a table next to a typical north Texas family with the cute little Texas mom right behind you, so you lean into the middle of your table and ask, “Hey do you guys mind if I fart?” and then you let fly: When they say “No!” you smile and respond with “Too late…” and everybody but the cute mom gets a good laugh. As far as sneakiness goes, if one considers harmonics and the directional aspect of sound, one quite quickly realizes that aiming the nozzle, as it were, gives one some control over where the fart sounds like it’s coming from. It’s really just a matter of a quick scan of the immediate area, a smart cocking of the hip and lettin’ ‘er rip. You really should try it some time.
As for the classification of farts, regardless of what you’ve heard previously, there are really only three varieties of fart: There’s your Suppression Fart, Your Exclamation Fart, and your Question Fart; that’s it, just them three.
Your suppression fart is any fart that makes little noise – They are never silent though; a silencer for a gun is not a silencer, it’s a suppressor. Just as you can not completely silence a weapon, you can’t completely silence your fart valve either; there is always some sound, it’s just that some of them are so quiet that you’d have to be quite close to hear them, and, for personal safety reasons, we just don’t do that, so take my word for it, OK? And despite the SBD misnomer, they aren’t all stinky. Most people probably produce farts from within this category, since they live under the fallacy that farts are rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. Purposefully suppressing a fart is ill advised and possibly dangerous: I won’t go into detail herein, but in so many words, you didn't really think that humans actually spontaneously combust, did you? ‘Nuff said…
Exclamation farts are just that. This is a fart that announces its presence with gusto and authority – Poot! You know ‘em when you hear them; from the thundering shorts, to the aforementioned rumbling faduka, they are all exclamation farts. They are a very manly fart, but certainly not exclusive to men; I have known some lasses who were fully in touch with their Y chromosomes and could belt out a fine exclamation fart. Most of them are of Scandinavian heritage...
A question fart is more reserved, a bit more hesitant perhaps, maybe a bit more polite. The question fart, (Poooot?), is asking if it’s OK to make itself known, seeing if there’s any more of its kind out there it might hobnob with, just checkin’ the scene rather than blasting out and stopping all conversation; kind of a fart mating call, if you will…
And that’s it, for most folks, that’s all the farts they will ever produce in a lifetime of farting. Now, there are a few people, a few artists, who rise above this level of fartage, but they are rare indeed. My sister recently told Monica and I about the beautiful French flower girl who works in her home town; at a party, this lovely creature actually farted out a coupla measures of Les Marseillaise, and apparently did an unabashedly damn fine job of it. My sis found it somewhat humorous, but she is not a farter; to her credit, she had the wherewithal to realize that she was in the presence of an artist, and to relate the tale to me.
Ah the French; they really know how to party!
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