Fart? Oh yeah, farting’s one of my favorite hobbies.
I did it a lot when I was little….only my mom or sister would direct me to the bathroom. It was the same routine: I’d stand around the toilet for two minutes , then flush it to make it sound realistic. I eventually trained my anus to swallow the gas back up, making an amplified stomach-growl sort of sound, causing me physical misery and raising a few eyebrows. That’s how it was for the next 25 years; my family never taught me that there’s a distinct difference between just cutting one and actually having to go.
I went through a couple of phases of intentional farting during my middle-school years, but what finally got me brave enough to rip one proudly was the film “Fanny & Alexander,” by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. There’s an early scene during the family Christmas party sequence, in which Uncle Karl shows the children a new way to blow out candles. Why, that guy could even make actual organ notes with his rectum! It blew my mind and got me to try producing a few. I was in my thirties, and the lion’s share of farts were the buzzing-lips kind from my boyhood, but there were one or two that I really prized—especially my “machine gun fart”….it was actually my constipated fart, but I’ve avoided Ex-Lax and prunes just so I could do it more often.
I’d always tried to develop one that sounds like it came from a brass instrument, preferably a trumpet or trombone. I’ve now gotten to the point where my most common fart is like a flutter-tongued trombone. I did a lot of secret experimentation to try and mute the sound, and I can now let one fly simply by pinching my buttcheeks together, so I can still carry out what’s really considered scientifically to be an important body function.
Ten years ago I had major gastrointestinal surgery which partly involved removing my gallbladder, and ever since then farting frequently has been an unavoidable thing for me. But over time I’ve found that very few of them even smell—in fact, only maybe 7% or 8%. I haven’t had mixed company or relatives comment on the smell.
Today I’m living alone, and I’m cuttin’ ‘em about 60 or 70 times a day…someday I’ll even work up the courage to forget discretion and proudly rip one in public!