We’ve all been there.
You’re in a public place. Or semi-public. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that there are people around and you cannot do certain things. You should not be digging for Waldo in your honker. Touching your genitals, even if it’s a simple readjustment matter concerning comfort, is verboten. And by no means should you loosen the control valve when it comes to digestive gaseous buildup in the lowlands.
You just don’t do it.
Yet, despite our best plans, things can go unexpectedly awry, sometimes with an intensity that is startling. Case in point: There I am, trapped in the workplace, on the one day when everybody on the planet reported to the office for some ungodly reason. (We have a half-ass work-at-home policy, in that we are “encouraged” to make regular visits but if, for some reason, you need to stay at home and work in your jammies, that’s fine. Naturally, most of us find one of those reasons 3 or 4 times a week.) I’m already not in the best of moods because there are so many annoying people in my peripheral vision, chatting nonstop and being completely useless.
And then it happened.
I’m innocently manipulating a spreadsheet to make it look like an inventory system that I manage was being cared for in a much more stellar manner than it really was. (Oh, don’t give me that look. You know you’ve done the same thing in one form or another.) I’m cussing Microsoft Excel (if I wanted you to format the data like that, I would have told you to format the data like that, you wretched piece of crap, stop making life decisions for me) when something shifts internally. Oh? What is this, pray tell? Two seconds later I realize there is a gas bubble the size of Tucson working its way through my system.
Great.
At first, I ignore the warning signs, assuming that I can just discreetly belch here and there and life will be good. (I’m not one of those cretins who will let loose with a ceiling-cracking thunderclap whilst in public. I have mastered the art of the silent oral release, so skillfully done that no one knows anything has happened except for the potted fern next to me that has just died.) But then there’s a sudden climate change, with pressure points shifting and expanding, and next thing I know if feels like I have a leaf blower shoved up my ass.
Oh dear.
Now, most folks would just quietly slip off to the restroom and set themselves free. I’m not really able to do that. I can pee on cue in front of anybody with absolute freedom, a comfort level that almost reaches the point of exhibitionism. No problem there. But when it comes to products from the other recycling portal, I slam shut. I don’t know what may have happened in my childhood that led to this issue, but I simply can’t do the more substantial recycling in a general admission arena. Even in a facility expressly designed for such relief.
Can’t do it.
So I suffer through the afternoon, alternating between bouts of severe pressure and those misleading, false-security moments where you think the gas has been routed somewhere else in your body and you just might survive. (The body is a wonderland of chutes and ladders.) Naturally, all of this discomfort is intensified by the useless co-workers who keep dropping by my desk, demonically intent on asking me inane questions that benefit mankind in no way whatsoever. If they only knew how close to death they were at that moment.
Finally, it’s the end of the day. People are heading out in droves, laughing and chatting, happy to be free for the next few hours. I curse every one of them as they clatter by me, willing them to move faster. Because I’m fully aware that, at this point, the mere act of movement could lead to a shocking personal tragedy, and I want the witness pool cut down to nothing.
When it’s down to just me and the cleaning staff left on the entire floor, I make my move. I race to one of the exit stairwells, totally-clenched and purposely avoiding the elevators so there are fewer potential workmates that want to talk about politics. This is an old and decrepit stairwell, and people don’t use this thing unless there are no other options or the building is on fire. (And even then, most folks would leap out a window rather than deal with what feels like a vertical dungeon built in 1692 where people were left to rot because they dared to question that whole witch-burning obsession.) Surely I’m safe.
I throw open the door to said stairwell, and make an assessment. Even with the voracious rumblings from my intestines, I can sense that you could hear a pin drop from the upper floors. There is no one else in the entire building using this flight of stairs.
Hallelujah.
I launch myself forward, waddling and slowly conquering flight after flight. Stupidly, I have parked on the lowest level of the underground parking garage, far off in a dark corner. (Because I don’t like people.) Still, I think I can make it across the vast plains of the Russian steppes, as long as I keep my focus and remain as clenched as Richard Nixon hoping nobody else knows how to use a tape recorder.
Two floors from my destination level, the gas bubble can no longer be denied. He wants out, and he wants out NOW, his needs severely heightened by all the jostling and exertion. I weigh my options, trying to tamp down on the one Puritan tenet that I adhere to (“Thou shalt not toot amongst the brethren”), and I decide that, surely, in a deserted stairwell, the risk is minimal. I send the signal to launch.
And right at that moment, I hear doors on every level above me slam open, and hundreds of people are pouring into the stairwell like somebody just announced a sale at Macy’s. What in gay hell? How can this be happening?
I send a secondary signal to abort the launch. But it’s tough going, as there are a lot of organs in my body complaining about the change in plans. They are not happy and want to chat with their union stewards before complying. Damn them. I’m sweating and moaning and I can’t breathe.
Cramping, I struggle onward, near delirium. I’m just one floor away from freedom. Sadly, this stairwell is a twisty one, where you have six steps, then a right turn, six more steps, another right turn. You get the picture, with lots of shifting and lunging. And it’s on one of these turns, leaping through the air, that I lose all bodily control.
In another time and place, I would have been quite proud of the enormous power unleashed out of my ass at that moment. But it was not the right time, not the right place, and there hadn’t been any consumption of alcohol to soften this situation into one of mere frat-boy indulgence.
The noise of my Zeus bolt shot upward, bouncing off the concrete walls and intensifying during the journey. I’m sure that ears were bleeding by the time my tragic and intimate cacophony worked its way to the upper levels.
There is total silence after my rolling thunder dissipates, everyone slamming to a halt as they process what they have just heard.
Then a lone country voice: “Well, gawd damn.”
I throw myself over the last stair railing and plummet to the bottom level, a desperate move that resulted in a shame-enhancing encore. I rip open the door to the parking lot and race to my car, tires squealing as I floor it to get out of this hell.
Let’s just say that I took advantage of the work-at-home policy for the next three years.
Fiber can destroy your soul, people. Write that down.
Originally published in “The Sound and the Fury” on 08/05/09 and Bonnywood Manor on 05/23/17. Minimally revised and updated with extra flair for this post.
Story behind the photo: This is actually an unexplained snap from my phone, the kind you find later and wonder “Did I take this? What was I trying to prove?” I thought it fitting for this post.
Quick note to those who made touching comments on the last post: Thank you for your kindness. I will eventually respond. But I can’t just yet.
Categories: My Life
Bonnywood Manor 
I realise that it makes me a terrible human being to laugh at your discomfiture but damn that was funny! x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, you’re not a terrible human being at all. If we can’t laugh at our very human failures, then what’s the point of it all? 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I laughed, I cried, I passed gas explosively. Call it a sympathy fart
LikeLiked by 2 people
I felt your exuberance all the way over here. Thanks for letting that cross the pond, so to speak… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another hilarious excuse for avoiding the work environment .
LikeLiked by 1 person
And I intend to keep doing so at all costs… 😉
LikeLike
I agree, it is funny. But you must have found it funny after three years! 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sure, I find it funny at this point. After all, I’m sure they’ve had a hazmat team fumigate the place by now… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
😃
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad I read that alone as I have a similar policy about snorting in public too..
LikeLiked by 2 people
Haha, good one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, the wicked ways of our biological functions… 😉
LikeLike
My dad wanted to invent a spray called ‘Be Gone’. If you fart, you spray it on and disappear. Then everyone wonders where the smell is coming from.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Interesting that you should mention a spray. Have you heard of a product called “Poo-Pourri”? You can squirt said product into the recycling station of your choice and it mostly negates the lingering evidence of your activities. My partner rarely leaves home without it, which is a wise choice on his part. Said with love… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I giggled all the way through this…and I’ve never the phrase “what the gay hell.” Love it! 😘💗
LikeLiked by 1 person
“What in gay hell?” is one of my favorite phrases. I use it much more often that I should, much to the chagrin of my friends… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love it. I think I’m going to use it on my very first work partner. She’s gay and funnier than shit.
She’s always saying (since I divorced that monster I was married to) “come on over to the other side.). LOL
LikeLiked by 1 person
*I meant “in”. Stupid phone thinks it knows what I want to say!*. 🤬
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seriously? I left out the heard! (It must have been grazing!)
LikeLiked by 1 person
The heard is often grazing when it shouldn’t be, which is why politics are so jacked up in this country…. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I figure we’ll just wait it out or wake up some morning to a world of cut throat zombies. Oh wait…they’re already in charge. 🥴
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is when you wonder where the damn invisibility cloak is! My least favorite thing is those little toot toot toots that happen with every step. Usually only when other people are around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, your mention of the “toot toot toots” reminds me of a magically embarrassing story of my friend Dianne who once astounded me with her percussion abilities during a certain lunchtime adventure in the workplace. I simply must get around to telling that tale… of the tail…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s really not so bad, but the buildup, the delivery. You not only know how to fart at the right place and time, acoustically speaking, but damn can you tell a good fart joke! Haha, the “lone country voice”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, a good reminiscence is all about the precise timing of the expulsion. And that lone country voice? It follows me everywhere… 😉
LikeLike
I may or may not have read this little bon witty before, but it bore repeating. (oh my gawd. I did not mean that pun….) bwahahahahahah!!! Me? I belong to the silent but deadly school, except when I thought it would be silent…um. Yeah. Try subtly passing an air biscuit, only to have the surround smell like something that was regurgitated on the sea shore and had been dead for ten yonks. It got rid of any and all persons in the area (including me, because although I’d grown it, I REFUSED to own it) and I think a little paint was peeled off the wall. Don’t try that at home…although the internal combustion could not reach such a pitch as you had. If one can’t toot within the privacy of one’s home, one has a bigger problem than an over exerted intestinal tract. Still. Dogs (any breed and size, doesn’t matter at all) have the crown when it comes to air frolics of the fartage kind. Huny, time to time, despite her wee size and refined demeanor, lets rip with stuff that makes my eyes literally burn. She lies there, looking innocent and amused as I choke and search for the air freshener and turn on any fan within reach. Yeah. Now that, my friend, is the real answer to WHO let the dogs out? It’s WHY they let the dogs out…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely comment, really mean that. And since you dragged Huny into the mess, it reminds me of a certain incident when Scotch the Cat, may he rest in combustible peace, let loose with such a rip-snorter of propane intensity that he nearly flew into the ceiling fan in our bedroom. I did not stop laughing for days, and I simply must capture the experience for paws-terity… 😉
LikeLike
Sweet Christ, I am so thankful I work from home now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Would it be fair to say that your former co-workers would be in agreement with this arrangement? Not judging, merely speculating… 😉
LikeLike
This is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING to do with flatulence and the repercussions of repressing that which will NOT be denied. However: Apparently I’m to wish you “Happy Holidays!!” I hope they are.
http://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2018/12/19/blokes-day-19/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh? What splendid diversion is this? I must rush over and survey the scenery… 😉
LikeLike
Been there done that, quite a few times. Most of the time mine are silent and deadly though. I remove myself from the area as quickly as possible if i can. Except for one time in a crowded, closed, unairconditioned conference room in July. There was no way to make an escape, no one on which i could conveniently place blame. I was stuck, as were my unfortunate coworkers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unfortunately, I’ve not been blessed with exemplary “silent but deadly” skills, at least not when it comes to the lower elevations. (I can belch with the lightness of angels.) Instead, my rump trumpeting can shift the axis of the planet and there is no doubt when it comes to the origin story…
LikeLike
“Well, gawd damn” is my new favorite reaction to all of life’s indignities. With those acoustics, after that big bomb, you should have followed up with a rendition of , “Take on Me” because you’ve already got the crowd warmed up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interestingly enough, I DID follow up with such a rendition. But it was a few days later, and my therapist told me to get my ass back on the couch, as we didn’t have time for show tunes…
LikeLike
I think you may need a new therapist. There’s always time for show tunes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Keep a fan in your office. You know, the inside version of a fart in a high wind. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, an office fan has helped me disperse the guilt in a number of critical situations… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are a fart master with skills😂😂😂😂 if you write a guide book I’ll buy it for my jungest one who ,despite her tiny figure,farts like a cammel🤭🤭🤭
LikeLiked by 1 person
Like a camel, eh? That sounds very serious. I’d better get to work on that guide book, presto…
LikeLike
I want to comment, but I really can’t find the words to express myself coherently.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s okay. Take your time, I’ll still be here when you finally find the words… 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah… brilliant!! I think “Well gawd damn” sums it up quite nicely! I know the echos of a concrete stairwell… I can imagine the decibels🤣🤣🤣
The only good story I have is farting on the dogs head and waking him up. He shouldn’t have laid with his head by my ass and paybacks are a bitch😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Angie. And really, at the end of the day, most turbulent situations are really all about the wrong people having their head in the wrong places at the wrong time…
LikeLiked by 1 person