Raising a stink

Flatulence. It’s a real gas.
 

Zing! Thank you folks, I’m here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses.
 

This particular rumination is dedicated in part to my father, who can consistently be relied upon to double over in laughter whenever someone within earshot releases a gaseous emission longer than a radio commercial and louder than a shotgun blast. Once a toot reaches the three-second mark, his dimples start to crinkle, his eyes fill with mirth, and his delight is matched only by unabashed jealousy. He likes to claim the longest and loudest for himself, and achieves this feat fairly often, though this is usually accompanied by the kinds of noxious fumes that could paralyze the front lines of an advancing 18th-Century British army. Had he been alive during the Revolutionary War, the Americans would have claimed victory in about two weeks, aided by a biological assault fueled by a diet of cabbage and beer.
 

This is what I grew up with. Thanks, Dad.
 

Thing is, you’ve got to pick your spots. If you’re going to impress someone – or drive them to gather their belongings and move to Barbados – you can’t just do it any old place, at any old time. It’s socially unacceptable. There are mores about this kind of thing, guidelines which must be scrupulously followed.
 

Guideline number one: Make sure you’re surrounded by an appreciative audience.
 

The younger you are, the easier it is to get a laugh in this manner. Kids enjoy farts. Like comic books and chocolate milk, it’s a part of their world. The best time to unleash the beast, therefore, is in grade school, when you can squeak ’em out as often as you want to without being permanently branded a social pariah. Unsurprisingly, I used to be known for this kind of thing; the fact that my last name is “Lagasse” played perfectly into this, as the words “gas” and “ass” are both contained therein. The trick is to strategically employ comedic timing. When you feel one building up, the best moment at which to let it loose is just after the teacher asks an innocent question of the classroom. “So, does anyone know what the boiling point of mercury is?” Brrrrrrap. Works every time. Kiddos, you can have that one for free.
 

This segues nicely into guideline number two: Utilize your environment for maximum amplification.
 

Wooden chairs. Need I say more?
 

Again, academia is the best environment for this endeavor. My fascination with the well-timed butt-blast lasted well beyond its acceptable shelf life, continuing through my senior year of high school. I was sitting one day in my calculus class, scrupulously taking notes rife with impressive-sounding words like “sine” and “cosine,” when a boy sitting next to me – I’ll call him “Thundercheeks” – let loose an unplanned emission, one of those weak surprises which sounds like air being slowly let out of a balloon. Embarrassed, he immediately blushed and offered a timid “Excuse me,” which was met by mild giggling.
 

Not wanting to be dethroned, I shot him a defiant look, leaned at about a 45-degree angle, and fired off a rocket that could have blown the eyebrows off a Japanese samurai. The trick was the angle; given a wooden chair, all it takes is positioning to turn a medium-sized explosion into an auditory offensive dwarfed only by nuclear bomb explosions.
 

After shattering a few eardrums, I turned to Thundercheeks and said, “Now that’s a fart.” I then became something of a legend. Sadly, this is one of my greatest accomplishments.
 

Guideline number three: You are what you eat. And so are your trumpet notes.
 

High school again. (Where else?) Earth science, last period. It was closing in on 2 p.m., the final bell of the day was imminent, and I could tell something magical was happening by the sheer volume and tenacity of my gurgling gut. School lunches make for the best fart ingredients by far, especially in the right combinations. Chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and Humpty Dumpty potato chips are an elixir so potent the United Nations should start issuing sanctions.
 

With two minutes left ’till quittin’ time, I let one loose.
 

Now, there’s often a downside to all this high-falutin’ tootin’, and that’s the olfactory offense it can cause. One by one, in slow waves forming concentric circles around my little nucleus, eyes began to widen in dawning awareness. Noses crinkled. Someone asked, “Who was that?” And then, like horses dashing through the gates at the Kentucky Derby, a mass exodus ensued, students tripping over forgotten book bags to catch a breath of fresh air just outside the classroom door. Even the teacher fled, leaving her swivel chair spinning languidly behind an empty desk. At that point, the jig was pretty well up; I was the only one left in the room, the rest relegated to peeking in at me from safer ground, most with facial expressions that were equal parts puzzlement and wonder.
 

In the final minute before the bell, I walked over to the teacher’s chair, took a seat, and put my feet up on the desk, grateful for the unexpected quiet. Rather than succumbing to embarrassment, I chose to mark the moment as a small victory, silent but deadly. Two things were responsible for evacuated classrooms that year: fire drills and my gastrointestinal system. How that didn’t make the yearbook is a mystery.
 

There’s a fourth guideline, folks, and it’s this: Never do any of the above in professional settings or polite company. Ever. I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work.
 

Somehow Dad forgot to mention that one when he was indoctrinating me in his flatulent ways. Certain things you’ve simply got to learn the hard way. Let’s just say that the next time I’m sandwiched in the middle of the back seat during a long road trip, I’m holding it in.