Flatulence

     Folks find flatulence funny.  Think Monty Python, or Victor Borges—“the familiar departing sound of his horse, ptht, ptht, ptht.”

     Or, what is the difference between a draft horse and a warhorse?  A warhorse darts into the fray.  (“a truck or cart for delivering beer barrels or other heavy loads, especially a low one without sides”, just in case “dray” sends you to your lexicon)

     Or the Granddaddy of them all, "Blazing Saddles".  (What would happen if Mel Brooks tried to produce something like that movie today?)

      “Bob” was a colleague in the brain factory.  He apparently suffered from gastro-intestinal distress as he was always fully charged with excess gas.  Or else he was a bachelor cooking for himself.  He was a bachelor at the time he worked with us.

      It was our custom to host bachelor teachers for supper once in a while before we were parents.  Bob was one of the callers.  We got to know him pretty well during the year or two he was on the faculty.

     Bob was looking for his life’s partner, which in those days meant he was looking for a wife.  He created discord when he dated two junior high teachers who were single, best of friends, and roomed together.  When he dated the first one, she thought he was hers.  When he dated the second one, jealousy created enough controversy between the two that they ended their roommate status.  Later they would each marry and remain good friends.  Bob wasn’t the husband of either.

      On one of his last visits, Bob could hardly contain his excitement.  He had something to tell us.  “I think I’ve found the right one!” he said.

     “How do you know, Bob?  What makes you so sure?”

      “I passed gas in the  kitchen and she didn’t say anything!”

     Sure enough, she was the right one.  They married and left for greener pastures.  She wasn’t a local girl.  I’m not sure where they met, where she was from, where they went.  I’ve lost track of Bob.

      Bob had a rather annoying habit.  Early in the morning before school started, before any kids arrived, he would stop by my classroom, and the classroom of others, stick his rear end in the door and fart.  Off he would go, leaving a contrail in his wake.

      One day I stopped by Harry’s room on my way to my classroom.  Harry was the chemistry and physics teacher.  His room was next to Bob’s.  Bob was a biology teacher.  Harry was a victim of Bob’s momentary early-morning visits, too.

      As we talked, I spied a vial on Harry’s desk.  I picked it up to read the label: “hydrogen sulfide”.  Our conversation stopped.  Harry and I looked at each other.  He took the vial from me.  Neither of us said anything.

     We walked into Bob’s room.  Bob was busily grading papers or preparing his day’s lesson plans.  He barely looked up as we entered.  I made a “phtht” sound with my mouth.  As I was doing that, Harry set the vial on a counter behind Bob and removed the stopper.

      Bob shrugged and groaned.  He knew he had it coming.  Without a word, Harry and I left to return to his classroom.  We could barely contain ourselves.  Musn’t laugh out loud, not yet.

      In about thirty seconds, Bob came storming into Harry’s room.  He pointed at me as he said, “YOU are ROTTEN inside!”  

      Harry and I followed Bob, laughing all the way.  Harry stoppered the vial, picked it up and showed it to Bob.  He didn’t laugh much.  He knew he had it coming.  Harry and I laughed, not just then, but for several days thereafter, when we met and reminded each other how cleverly we had served old Bob.  I have lost track of Harry, too.

     Not too many incidents in the past 50 years have a date or time attached to them.  This incident I can clearly remember both: February 3, 1979, about 7:45 a.m.

     Uncle Bill is a great Lion.  He served as district governor.  He went to places all over the world to attend Lions’ international conventions.  He was the driving force that developed “Sight Busses” that travel all over Kansas checking people for glaucoma and other eye problems.

      Thus it was that when Herndon Lions sent an invitation to our Lions club to attend their Ground Hog Day ham and bean supper, Bill rounded up a station wagon full of Lions to go to Herndon and partake of ham and beans.  It was a fund-raiser as well as a chance to put a little fun in our lives between New Years and Valentine’s Day.

      There were five or six of us in his vehicle. It was an icy treacherous day.  Bill drove somewhat sanely for him and we arrived in one piece, made our way into the hall and partook of the ham and beans.  The Goodwife and I were two of the number.  She would give birth to or daughter on March 17 of that year.  She was seven months pregnant.

      Sometime during the evening, we would find out that another Lion, who did not attend, had become a father again on that day.  He had a daughter who would be our daughter’s classmate for twelve of their thirteen years.  We returned home without incident, no one having slipped or fallen on the ice or anything.

       The Goodwife spent a miserable night.  She was up and down, tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position that would help pass the gas through her system crowded with the fetus she carried.  For her, the ham and beans had not been a good idea.

       The next morning, we both went to work as usual.  At my school, an early-riser always put on the coffee.  When we arrived, the first stop was usually the lounge where the coffee was freshly brewed.  On February 3, four or five of us gathered, as usual, to share a moment or two together before we set off to develop young brains.  Bill arrived.  Only moments after his arrival, the rest of us arose as one and headed for the door.

     Bill had used his underwear as a very unsatisfactory air filter to refine the vaporous final product of the previous evening’s ham and beans.  

     As we departed, Gary, the band teacher, arrived.  Gary was not an early riser.  He often arrived bleary-eyed, in need of a caffeine stimulant to get his day going.  He would drink a cup of coffee, if he had time, before heading off to band practice, which was always first thing in the morning.

      This February 3 was no exception.  Gary courteously held the door while we rushed out.  He failed to notice that we were gagging, holding our noses, muttering curses at Bill, each of us reacting in our own way to Bill’s foul breach of manners.

      Bill was the last one out the door.  Gary stepped around the door and into the small room that constituted the teachers’ lounge.  The door closed behind him.  Bill thoughtfully rested his 260-pound bulk against the outside of the door which swung outward. 

     The rest of us halted to see how long it would take Gary to realize he had walked into a deadly trap, a trap that at the time, we thought, rivaled the trenches of World War I.  In a very few moments, the door handle flew down and the attempt to push the door open was foiled by Bill’s weight holding it shut.  The handle flew up and again the futile push.  Up, down, the handle worked, but alas, nothing availed.  The door would not budge.

      Then there came a pitiful and urgent knocking on the door, not with a fist, but with an open hand, rather high up on the door, as if the supplicant were begging for help.  One of the observers standing in the hallway outside the lounge door said, “Let the poor b****** out, Bill.”

      Bill stepped aside and the door flew open.  Out staggered poor Gary, now more teary eyed than bleary eyed.  This one morning, Gary decided he could face the morning without the caffeine.  Off he trundled down the hall towards his band room.

     It is human nature to enjoy the discomfort of others.  How else do we explain the horror stories of torture and death and the vast audiences that observed them from earliest histories even into modern times?  Enjoying another’s discomfort or embarrassment is, after all, the point of all practical jokes.  We pull them on our friends.

      I confess, we laughed.  And laughed.  Poor Gary notwithstanding.  I excuse and forgive myself.  It’s human nature. 

     Later that day, in the lunch line, I heard one male student say, “Stay away from Mr. B today.  He’s got it bad.”  I needn’t ask what he had bad.

      Still later, we would discover that Bill’s daughter had hitched a ride with her Dad to get to an early morning cheerleading practice that day.  After about three blocks, she insisted he stop the car.  She got out and walked the remaining five or six blocks in the chill February morning, facing some pretty treacherous footing.

      Torture knows no boundaries.

     Neither does low humor.