It is all about timing…

This morning I had to run to the post office down the street from my office.  This particular post office is inside of a Lawton’s Drugs on the busiest street in Halifax.  Seeing as there is a lot of traffic on Spring Garden there are a lot random people floating around asking for change and doing a lot of scheming.  Anne (I only know her name because I heard someone say it) was walking into Lawton’s in front of me.  I am not sure if she was in a rush this morning, but she forgot to put on a bra.  She was also wearing sling pant style leggings which emphasized every lump and bump on her, crocs and she was slurping on a large pop.  She was walking to the cash in front of me when she bent down and picked up some pennies off the floor.  She looked at me and said “wow I found these on the floor – man I got bad gas.”  It seems that the two topics went together for her.  I couldn’t make the connection, but the timing was impeccable for me.  It made my post office visit much more interesting.  A few months ago I had two events happen at bank machines; normally this activity is very predictable and not funny, however, good timing spiced up my bank machine encounter.  The first encounter happened when a couple got in a huge financial fight in front of me.  She was a portly girl and he wasn’t terribly ambitious looking.  He went to take money out of his account and got denied or his balance shocked him because he said “did you take money out of my account?”  She says in a hostile tone “yeah I did for smokes – you owed me money” to which he replied “owe you money?  you owe me money, 20 bucks from march”.  Now I know women get accused of bringing up things from the past, but this was really digging deep.  20 bucks from months before. They continued to stand there and fight with each other not really minding the fact that I was standing there awkwardly witnessing their domestic dispute.  Eventually she says “fine then fine then, I am just gonna go” to which he said “go, I don’t care” she then said “take your 20 bucks and suck you “beep” with it.”  Not sure how a guy would do that.    He walked away acted as if he didn’t care, but I saw him hide behind a pole and poke his head out to see if she had really left.  It made me feel really good about my balance. 

The second encounter: now bank machine areas are kind of like elevators – usually quiet.  You can normally sense if someone is standing behind you.  When I walked in there was a man using the bank machine so I stood waiting for my turn.  He was tapping away on the machine when he looked over his left shoulder.  Seeing as we were at a bank you might think he was ensuring there were no robbers around, but what happened next will verify that is not what he was checking for.   After looking over his shoulder the man leaned a little to the left slightly lifting his leg and let our an enormous fart.  Now, I am not tall but I am 5″2 and had heels on.  I wasn’t using my superpowers to make myself invisible that day. I was also wearing a bright green jacket.  How did he not see me?  This fart was long enough for him to take his money and pivot around while still blasting.  He got a real blast when he saw me standing there.  He knew.  I knew.  It was terribly awkward.  He kind of filled his cheeks up with air and lifted his eyebrows up.  It wasn’t a proud moment for him; I am willing to bet he didn’t tell anyone about his bank machine blow out.

Maurice and I had a party a few weeks ago and we had a fair amount of extra food.  I decided to bring it to Sister Jovita to distribute at her street outreach program.  Outside of the church there was a woman (I think) in a wheelchair.  She said to me “what do you got in there?”  I said “Pie, I am dropping it inside so you can likely have some when lunch starts.” She goes “pie, what kind?” I told her.  She let our an enormous belch and burned away in her electric chair.

I guess I could look at the mentioned incidents as bad timing seeing as they exposed me to belches and blasts, instead I looked at it as awesome timing. I am thankful that I was were I was at that exact moment.

I will never do that…

So, I turned 33 on the weekend!  When I say that number it sounds kind of crazy because I don’t feel much different than I did at 22, 26 and 30.  In fact, I really like being 33.  

I remember being younger than I am now and saying “oh I would never do that”, “I would never wear that”, etc.  One specific thing is wearing a purse over my shoulder.  At that time I thought fanny packs were the way to go and having a shoulder purse seemed so “old”.  However, as I got older I migrated towards the over the shoulder version.  I am very strange about expiration dates.  I think this dates back to an elementary school experience I had with drinking sour milk.  In grade two Mrs. Broussard made me drink it and I have been milk scarred ever since. I recall Mom looking at something that was over date smelling it, cutting mold of it and saying “it is fine”.  I would start gagging and being terribly dramatic.  Well guess what?  I now smell things and I cut off mold from cheese.  What has happened to me?

There is one thing I will NEVER do.  Yesterday I made my way to Miami via the Philadelphia airport.  I had about 1.5 hours to spare so I was just strolling around.  Along my stroll I decided to pop into a washroom to have a pee.  This is where it happened.  Why is it that every time I go in an airport bathroom some older woman comes in and literally blows her arse off in the stall beside me?  As in, this women let out a fart that was so loud it nearly lifted me off the toilet I was on. No matter what age I am I will forever be clenching my butt cheeks in a public washroom or at least ensure that I am 100% alone.  That is one thing I will never do.

The incident at the hotel

Most of you who know me would describe me as carefree, irreverent and somewhat wild.  When it comes to farting I am uptight, conservative and old-fashioned. I grew up in a bungalow with 3 older brothers and my father, outnumbered greatly.   Seeing as I was in a house full of men I was exposed to a lot of farting.  I just googled “average number of farts daily”  and science says the average person farts 15 times a day.  Now take the average of 15 X 4 (number of men in my house – I am leaving my mother and I out of this) and you get 60 farts.  I am willing to say that they were above average: Mom often made chili, baked beans and other carb rich dishes. Being exposed to 60 farts is enough to create a negative experience.

Recently I took a trip to NYC with my boyfriend (who I do not fart in front of).  We stayed in a lovely 290 square foot room in Midtown Manhattan.  290 feet does not leave a lot of room for freedom.  Thankfully we had the dog with us so that gave a great excuse to get out “I will take the dog out to pee – you stay here”. I am sure he was doing the same thing I was doing when left alone.  Due to the limited space our luggage was pushed into any available area – Maurice’s was at the foot of the bed and mine was beside the bed on a radiator.  Maurice was bent over looking for something in his suitcase when I realized I needed something in mine.  In order to get to mine I needed to slide along the end of the bed and swing the corner.   While sliding by I had to get around Maurice and when I tried to do so I put my hands on his hips and did something similar to what dogs do to other dogs at the park.  This set him off-balance and for some reason I decided to pull him backwards onto the bed and inadvertently on top of me.  I am taking a guess here but I would say Maurice weighs somewhere around 200 pounds.  The impact of a 200 pound man landing on you is quite intense.  When the impact occurred something happened… something BIG happened… gas which had been trapped inside of me for 4 days came rushing out.  I let out an enormous fart.  There was a moment of silence and then he said “was that a fart, was that a fart?”, my silence indicated the answer.  I jumped up off the bed and awkwardly took a big gulp of orange juice at the exact moment that Maurice said “that was the biggest fart I have ever heard” and began laughing harder than I have ever heard him laugh.  His reaction caused nervous laughter on my end – to make matters worse I was swallowing juice at that exact moment – it came out and sprayed all over the dog and the bed.  So, here I was spewing things from both ends.  I left my pride in that 290 square foot room in Midtown Manhattan.

Still embarrassed and signing off – not as “The Girl Who Played With Fire” or “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” but as “The Girl Who Let Out The Biggest Fart Ever Recorded”.

EC