Stuck on Lou

On Farting Audibly in Public

A few years ago, I made an interesting discovery:

I can fart audibly almost anywhere, and as long as it isn’t a comically loud stunt fart, no one notices.  I’ve tested this out in various contexts;  I’ve never seen anyone miss a beat. 

I think this is because everyone assumes that a respectable lady in her 30’s such as myself doesn’t flagrantly fart in public.  Their brains automatically filter out the information as incompatible with reality. 

If only this had been true when I was a kid.

In 4th grade, I started at a new school where I witnessed a boy in my class fart audibly.  His friend turned to him and asked, “Did you just fart?”  He shrugged and said, “Yeah.”  That was it.  There was no further discussion.

I was FLOORED.  I had made such an effort to avoid farting around other kids until that point in my life, for fear of public humiliation.  Yet here was evidence that it was totally ok at this school!

A few days later, liberated by this new information, I deliberately farted audibly in class.  The girl next to me asked, “Did you just fart?”  I was cool and confident when I replied, “Yeah.”

But it was not cool.  Uproar ensued immediately.  The incident was the talk of the entire 4th grade for the rest of the day.  I don’t remember hearing anything about it after that, but the year did not turn out to be a socially successful one for me.  In fact, I don’t think I fully recovered from that one audible fart until maybe 8th grade.