[insert title here]

unmentionable foulness

You know those dates where you go to a movie and then to dinner? For a guy, the most relaxing, most anticipated moment of the evening isn’t the goodnight kiss, it’s the goodnight fart. That wonderful, completely relaxing feeling of busting out a cloud of methane that’s been building up for six hours.

Someday you will find yourself with a beautiful woman. The kind your friends all want to date but settle for less than. The kind who will judge you solely on your appearance as well. The kind who, when you ask her if she swallows, says don’t even think about shooting it off in her mouth.

And you will love her regardless. You will love her little car, and you will love her cocker spaniel. You will try your damnedest not to look at other girls when you are both walking down the street. You will succeed at this, just a little.

This is a girl whose phone number you have memorized, but who has yours on a page towards the middle of her address book. A girl who knows your birthday but doesn’t know your middle name. A girl who glances over your shoulder during conversations, keeping an eye out for someone better to talk to.

After a few weeks of fancy movies, fancy dinners, and little shopping trips, you will find yourself in her bedroom. You will study the contours of her neck, her breasts, and count the stripes on her wallpaper. You’ll both be sweaty and naked and breathing heavily. And you will have to fart with mountain-splitting intensity.

You can’t get up to go to the bathroom because the very act of walking might set off this fuming, bouncing blob of gas. It sinks to the bottom of your ass and knocks on the door of your sphincter, begging to be let out. You strain to push it back up and feel the bubble of it rise to the top of your colon. You keep counting the stripes on the wallpaper.

She smiles at you, touching you all over, and you smile back, trying to keep this monster in check. She rises to go to the bathroom and you realize this might be your only chance to rip one. And you let go, with an ear-shattering rumble that shakes down little pieces of plaster ceiling on the tenants below. But you got more relief than you intended, and now there’s a little puddle of liquid shit that feels cold and wet on your sweaty, naked ass.

And you panic.

There might not be a way to reconcile this before she gets back. If you just grab up the blankets and run to a Laundromat she might think you’re weird, but would that be better than just admitting the truth? Is there still time to just get dressed and run away, to just cut your losses? Maybe she won’t notice ‘til the morning. You lift the comforter a little and take a whiff. No, she’s going to notice. She’s going to notice right away. And then you hear a flush.

You’re running out of time.

You look around for a towel…maybe you can soak this up, cover up the smell, and clean these filthy sheets when she goes to work in the morning. Maybe you can catch her en route to her bedroom and somehow distract her. Maybe you can tell her there was a phone call and her mother in Phoenix has had a heart attack and she has to pack and get on a plane right now and then maybe you will have time to fix this mess.

You hear the cessation of the faucet water and count the footsteps until she returns. You hope that with the lights out, the little slices of streetlight through the blinds won’t be enough for her to see what’s going on. You hope maybe she will just ignore the smell because she is so tired from the terrible act you two have just finished which, by the way, is illegal in seven states. And the door opens. And she says:

“Oh my god, what’s that terrible smell?”

Time to cut your losses.