The Phantom of the Awkward Part 7: Trying to Maintain My Composure When this Guy Farted Mid-Conversation
http://ricoswaff.com/blog1/?p=2678
Everybody farts…I guess. I don’t necessarily like it. If I had the choice to not fart, I would select that choice.
As ridiculous as it sounds, I have a difficult time accepting the fact that women fart. I have a really difficult time coming to terms with the fact that my wife farts. I don’t know why…maybe it’s just a matter of not wanting to associate my significant other, who I am very attracted to, with something so notorious for having a rancid odor.
Farts spark many awkward situations. For example, have you ever been around a bunch of people and had to fart so you walked away to be by yourself where you could act like you were doing something on your own, but in reality you just walked away to fart and you didn’t want anyone to smell it… Then after you fart, someone decides to walk up to talk to you, while your fart is wafting in the air in a 5 foot or so radius surrounding you…which leaves the person who approached you either thinking you are a smelly person, you pooped your pants or you farted??? This has happened to me a few times. I am such a stickler when it comes to fart denial, that I actually have the audacity to ask the other person if they farted…knowing damn well that it was me who did it and knowing damn well that they know it was me who did it. Heck, I could be in an elevator with one other person and have a fart slip, and if it smells, I will act like I am repulsed by the other person in the elevator with me because they farted… I never, ever, EVER claim my own farts. Farting embarrasses me.
To this day, I still remember from school, roughly 75% of the girls who farted in class to the point where I could hear it. Heck, I remember a girl farting in class when I was in Kindergarten and thinking to myself, “ewww that’s gross.” And I am 32 years old now. For some reason, those memories always stuck with me.
I think I’ve written enough to prove that I have a ridiculous, neurotic way of approaching and reacting to farts. I wish I could shake it, but can’t.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone (one person) and had to fart? And the conversation becomes an overly lengthy one to the point where you can no longer hold the fart in any longer, so you decide to let the fart go, crossing your fingers that: 1.) It is silent and 2.) It doesn’t smell, for if it does smell, it would give you no choice other than to wrongfully accuse the other person of farting? I’ve had a few of these situations. I’ve been in both roles…I’ve been the farter and I’ve been the one speaking to someone who farted. Always awkward…and I always end up asking the other person, “hey, did you by chance…fart?”
This story is about a situation I had with someone who farted while in mid-conversation with me. And to say the least, this was one of the most bizarre farts ever farted.
So one day, I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few odds and ends we needed around the house. I wasn’t in a talkative mood at the time. I wasn’t in a hurry or anything, but I went there with the mindset of, “I hope I don’t see anyone that I know, for I just want to go in, pick up what I need, leave and get home ASAP so I can watch ‘The Wonder Years’ on Netflix.” It was all business. Pick up my shit, nod and say “hey” to anyone I know and get out. I’m sure all of you know the type of mood I am talking about.
So I’m in Wal-Mart and I went about my business uninterrupted for the first 10 or so minutes.I browsed the CD/DVD section. I picked up my Right Guard, paper towels, trash bags, Oreos, etc. I was almost finished. Then, while walking through the condiments aisle, I noticed a dude I used to kind of know a decade or so ago. This guy was a middle-aged man with chubby red cheeks, a large gut, a goofy perma-smile and a hairline with hair color that didn’t match the age of his face…It was difficult to determine if he was 45 or 65 years old for he had the face and body of a man of 60-65, yet a hairline and lack of grey hair of a man who is…30. He also has a slight Southern accent. He is literally one of the last guys I want to run into when I am not in a “chatty,” social mood, for when he starts to talk to you, you can’t get away from him.
Now, what made this guy intolerable when I used to see him often was the fact that he always tried to get me to join this Jehovah’s Witness church which he was an avid member of. So when I noticed him in the condiments aisle that day, I thought, “shit,the last damn thing I want to do right now is have a long freaking conversation with some odd guy I haven’t seen in 10 years about how my only glimmer of hope for salvation is if I make a commitment to the Jehovah’s Witness religion.” This guy was always barking up the wrong tree with me with that stuff and no matter how many different times or different ways I informed him that I had absolutely no interest in joining his religion, he always tried. And it was always an extensive, unavoidable conversation that was difficult, if not seemingly impossible to escape from. I always had to make up some crazy ass lie to get away from him. I’d blurt out the first crazy fib that came to my mind. Like, “oh dude, sorry to leave during your Jehovah’s Witness pitch, but I just received a text that there was a heard of baboons that escaped from the zoo and they are attacking our hogs with sticks! I gotta go!” That is an absurd excuse to begin with. Not only do I not own any hogs, but the nearest zoo with baboons is like 100 miles away…so it is unlikely that these baboons would have traveled all that way to beat my hogs with sticks had they escaped. Whatever, I didn’t give a shit how absurd it was…I’d say anything to jet out of those dreaded conversations with him.
Now, we will just pretend this guy’s name is “Dingledorf.” When I got near Mr. Dingledorf with my shopping cart, I kind of glanced at him, studying him, hoping that he wouldn’t recognize me and I could just walk on by and pick up the remaining couple-few items I still needed to pick up. Of course he noticed me right when he looked my way and in his Southern-ish accent was like, “well hi Josh, nice to see ya!” “Yeah, you too, Dingledorf,” I replied. I slowly crept my shopping cart by with hopes that maybe, just maybe our conversation would end there. “So, what are you up to in your life these days? How is life-a treatin’ ya?” he inquired. “Oh great, here comes the Jehovah’s Witness recruiting pitch. Ok, just try to make yourself come off as small as a target as possible,” I thought to myself. “Umm, I am real good. I am real content with life and I feel that every component and any potential void in life has been fulfilled. I am just incredibly happy,” I said. That was a total lie, but for Pete’s sake, I could see him slithering into a “pitch” from the second sentence that came out of his mouth. Honesty was not a top priority of mine at that moment. Escaping the conversation was the top priority. “Well, you know what could make you feel more content?” he asked. “UGH!!! Dingledorf is wasting NO time in discussing my salvation and how I can be saved by joining the Jehovah’s Witness church,” I thought. And then he followed with something that I didn’t expect. “Do you have life insurance?” he asked. Ha. So this was his kick now…selling life insurance. I responded, “yeah, I have two plans.” Which isn’t a lie. He replied, “well, I sell life insurance now and I think I can find something more suitable for you than what you have now.” This is when I put him into “total quack mode.” I do this when someone is either trying to sell me something or goes on and on about something that I don’t care about. Basically I just stand there, nod my head when suggested to, watch their mouths move and fail to process a single word they say to me. They can be quacking like a duck as far as I know, and I wouldn’t notice it, for I am not paying attention to what they are saying…at all. Just kind of going through the nonverbal stuff that makes me appear as if I am paying attention…when I am not.
So this guy continued to quack at me about life insurance and I stood there nodding my head, itching for the conversation to end so I could be on my way when suddenly, while he was speaking, a loud, high pitched squeal, followed by a “putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt” noise came from his pelvic region. When I heard the high pitched squeal, my immediate thought was, “what the hell?!?! What IS THAT?!?!” However, when I heard the “putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt” noise, it was obvious to me that this guy had just let out one of the most bizarre sounding farts I’ve ever heard in my life…in mid-conversation.
Now, when I said that this was one of the weirdest sounding farts I’ve ever heard in my life, I meant it. Since it happened, I have tried to come up with an accurate comparison as to what it sounded like and the best I can do in terms of describing the sound is this: that the squealing noise sounded like a high-pitched black man, like Chris Tucker (from the movies; Friday, Rush Hour, The Fifth Element, etc.) yelling, “sayyyyyy whaaaaaaaaat” with his hand cupped over his mouth. The “putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt” noise sounded like someone trying to start a moped with a very low battery and a faulty starter. Ok, so imagine the notoriously high-pitched Chris Tucker standing next to a moped. Chris Tucker puts his hand over his mouth and in his high-pitched voice yells, “sayyyyy whaaaaaaaaaatttt!?!?!” And then Mr. Tucker tries to start the moped, which has a faulty starter and a very low battery. That is what this guy’s fart sounded like. I was in total shock of how this guy’s fart sounded, I couldn’t believe he let such a powerful, odd-sounding fart escape his sphincter while he was in mid-conversation me and I REALLY couldn’t believe that he continued to go on about this life insurance shit after he farted without taking the time to say, “excuse me.” He just kept going on like nothing happened.
Then the smell hit the air. It was disgusting. The smell was just as rancid as the sound was weird. It smelled like a dead mouse doused in sauerkraut juice. It put me in a daze.
I just stared at him with that stupid, befuddle****ed expression on my face that I still get today when something absolutely floors me. And this guy just kept on “quacking” about this life insurance policy that he thought would suit me. “If only I would have bought into this life insurance policy before being exposed to this fart of his,” I thought to myself…because that fart was so rancid and gross, I thought I could die.
After another minute or so of him quacking and me staring at him with my mouth wide open, he finally acknowledged his fart. He must have noticed how thrown off I was by it. He paused for a second and said with his semi-Southern accent, “I’m sorry about my flatulence. I ate me some cheese.” Without thinking, I replied, “you ate you some cheese?” I couldn’t believe I uttered those words…it was like I was talking like him…..”you ate you some cheese?” Ugh. It does kind of explain the dead mouse smell. Maybe a mouse crawled into his ass on a mission to find that cheese and ended up dying. Anyways, he replied, “yeah, I ate me some cheese. I’m sorry bout my flatulence.” Then he went right back into his life insurance pitch like nothing happened.
After another couple minutes of this guy’s continuous quacking about the life insurance policy combined with the lingering scent of a dead mouse doused in sauerkraut juice, I made the decision to try to slyly flee from the conversation and this guy in general. I came up with the first lie that came to my head. I said, “well hey man, I gotta go. My wife is in the hospital giving birth right now and I probably need to get back to her hospital room.” “Oh your wife is having a baby?’ he asked. “Yes. She is having twins,” I replied. I figured this excuse would be understandable. He would at least let me leave now, right? WRONG. He responded by informing me that I can take out life insurance plans on both of my children that were being born that moment. Holy shit…these people stop at nothing. I ended up just looking at him and saying, “I’ll see you later, Dingledorf.” Then I walked away.
Out of all of the bizarre, cringe-inducing, awkward situations involving farts that I have experienced in my lifetime, that particular fart sticks out as being the worst. It was preposterous.
"One time when I spoke to the mullet man, Rick Dickulous, he farted mid-conversation like the guy in the story did. The only difference was, he said, “I am sorry bout my ‘fartulence,” I ate me some stink bait.” That kind of explains why Rick doesn’t catch very much fish to feed his family…because he eats the bait."