Strange Music

Tonight we celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Three happily married years! We have been together as a couple twice as long as that, and we have been friends for over sixteen years!!

Although our night out to see 'Phantom of the Opera' was more or less our anniversary celebration, we couldn't go through the actual Day without doing something!! (Now.. I know what you're thinking... but, I'm out of commission right now, Doc's orders... Rats!!)

So.. we decided to go out to dinner to a nice romantic little place.... Elysia got a recommendation from a co-worker, so we chose this place:



Which, is a few towns away (which translates to a ten to fifteen minute drive..)

It is cozy, romantic, and beautiful! The staff is great, and the food was out of this world!

As we were setting to at our appetizer, one of the adjacent tables was just preparing to leave. The last person at the table to stand up, a woman, apparently decided to leave an appetizer for us of her very own making; As she was scooting around the table to make her way out into the aisle, she let go with a loud, thunderous fart!! In public, unapologetically, and no more than four feet away from us!!



I was so shocked by this, for some reason, that I quite inadvertently snapped my head around and gaped at her!!

Elysia had the poise to pretend that she didn't notice at all.. which I found to be scandalous, and would have none of whatsoever! Being the helpful fellow that I am, I gleefully brought her up to date on the news by whispering (I call it a whisper.. she maintains that I am incapable of whispering) to her that the lady in question had just 'baked a huge fart!'. I didn't want her to miss out on any of the fun, you see...

There is some degree of incongruity in a lady farting in a posh bistro that I find incredibly amusing. I wanted to show my solidarity with her by standing up and letting one go.. but It was my sense that the other patrons would not have shared the spirit of the moment with me. (Well, they would have absolutely shared in the spirit of the moment, but that's not precisely what I meant...)

This brings to mind other instances where ill-timed farts brought either great embarassment or a gale of laughter...

I was out at the mall one day, years ago, and for some reason I suddenly had an urge to let loose with what I just knew was going to be loud, obnoxious, and room-silencing fart. But. I was in about the most public place that one can be in!! What's worse, no matter what seculded spot I tried to slink away into, some friggin' imbecile would manage to follow me and hang around.. it was hopeless!! The bathrooms were all occupado.. single person bathrooms, no less, where one couldn't just wander in, let one fly, and flee. I was starting to get panicky, (one hiccup, one sneeze, one trip on a crack in the floor, and it was all over.. but hopefully (hopefully, not all over me!! Yeek!) I could manage to find someplace where I could sneak off to and just bloody well have done with it before I died!!

Finally, I managed to find an empty corner where the men's suit department was located. I didn't see a soul around. I backed almost all the way into the farthest corner of the store and boy did I honk out a huge one!! Just then, immediately on the other side of the rack I was standing next to an older woman... an older, prudish, proper, severe, puritannical old biddy who had been stooped over doing some sort of work back there stood straight up with the most abject look of horror and disgust on her face that I have ever had the privilege (privilege??) to set my eyes upon. What's even more endearing, is that it was directed at me!! And that was before the Huba-stank whomped her in the old snot-locker, at which time she simply looked about ready to pass out. I was absolutely mortified. I could have just died!! I felt like the most ill-bred, uncouth, crass, dotish buffoon on the face of the earth. So I ran. Like hell!! And I never, ever, ever went back there. They have since gone out of business, but I don't think that much of that can be attributed to the fart... though I can't honestly rule it out.

I was working as a store detective in a retail clothing store for awhile. This particular location had been getting hit regularly by groups of shoplifters, and the store was very serious about apprehending and making examples of the culprits. Due to my years of law enforcement experience, they felt that I would be a good choice insofar as I was very well acquainted with the laws of the state, and was able to build a strong case against anyone that I observed stealing merchandise from the store. So far, so good.

My main method for catching these folks was to remain perfectly still and quietly watch, usually from a remote section of the sales floor from where I could see a great deal of what was going on. My usual way of going about this was to stand on one end of an 'H-track', which is basically a clothing rack with two long parallel bars upon which the clothing hangs, and lean over it with my elbows on the cross-bar. This brought my head down to the level of the cross bars and made me much less obvious to anyone who casually looked in my direction. I never knew exactly how well this worked until one day, as I was at my 'perch' and watching the shoppers, a woman slowly made her way around the department, browsing the racks, and ever so slowyly making her way to where I was standing. She actually began to browse the very rack that I was leaning on, and I just assumed that she had seen me. She didn't acknowledge me in any way, and I remained stock-still, on the watch for thieves.. which is what I was supposed to be doing... as she was browsing the rack, she suddenly let out a little squeak. This caused my eyebrows to raise a bit, and in my head I said, "Wow! That lady just completely cut a fart, not two feet away from me!", but outwardly, I made no sign at all. I was a little taken aback by it, but, let's face it, people fart, and sometimes they sneak out with little or no warning... so, no sense making a big deal out of it and embarassing folks. So I ignored it. Not ten seconds later, she blasted one out that burned the hair off my arms and made my eyes water.. I was completely and utterly shocked! I could not believe that this woman had just blatantly knocked one off basically in my face!! But, chivalry not being dead, I made no mention, nor did I make any sign that I had noticed. She was not yet finished however... she began humming to herself, and pushing out the little fart-bubbles at the end in time with the tune that she was singing to herself... now this was a bit much!! Just about that time, she held up a shirt that she apparently considered to be a particularly lucky find. I, on the other hand, had lost the battle with my self-discipline, and had just begun to turn my head to get a good look at this cretin of a woman who had just irradiated me against my will. As I moved my head, this caught her eye, I now realize, for the very first time!! Our eyes met, she did the math (rather quickly, I'll add!), and she did three things simultaneously; she gasped, (eyes wide, hand to mouth), she dropped the shirt, and lastly, she ran. Like hell. And she never, ever, came back! There was some sort of cosmic balance in that whole thing, I rather feel...

Another time, while stationed in Korea, it was the custom of all of the local martial arts dojangs (gyms) to get together to train and then have dinner together on the third Tuesday of the month. One or the other of the groups would lead a communal work-out, we would do our best to kill one another, and then we would get showered up and head out to a restaurant for dinner and laughs.

On this particular night, we had reserved a room at the NCO Club on base. We headed over after the workout, and at some point the manager came over to us, looking harried and worried, and asked if we would mind if he put a couple at one of the tables in our room. Apparently he had overbooked his reservations, and had run out of space. "No problem! Bring 'em on in!" we said, and he brought in a married service couple and sat them at a small table in the corner. We continued on with our dinner, and during the course of the meal, we told stories or recounted situations that caused us all to lapse into hysterical laughter.

At one point, the husband, who was a bit of a wet blanket, apparently, decided that we were making entirely too much noise in the room that we had reserved for just this occassion so that we could do just what we were doing, by the way... and stood up, approached the table that I was sitting at, and demanded (not asked, demanded! that we keep the noise down)(you have got to be fucking kidding us, right??) We didn't want to make an issue out of it, and basically told him that 'sure, we'll keep it down.. sorry for the bother...etc., etc., and went on with dinner. Knucklehead wasn't happy with the way we sort of blew him off, and began to give us the hairy-eyeball, which started to become a source of amusement to some of the guys there. At one point, somebody, I'm not sure who... (honestly... I really have no idea...) blasted a loud, splapping fart, followed by group hysterics. This was obviously directed at hubby, and it thouroughly pissed him off. Bad timing, and bad situation on his part, unfortunately... to make matters worse, his wife had to stifle a giggle, which went right up his ass! He stood up, walked back over to our table, and stood at my elbow. (Why does it always have to be me??!).

"Excuse me!", he snapped. I ignored him completely and went on with my conversation.
"Excuse me, I said!" he repeated. And, I continued to blow him off. I didn't want to be involved. This wasn't going anywhere that I liked, and I wanted him to go away, and enjoy his dinner with his wife. I knew this guy wanted to pick a fight to impress his wife, and I was fairly certain that this plan would backfire in his face if it went where he was trying to take it, and I didn't think that that was cool, but I didn't have the presence of mind to be able to smooth it out, and I knew it.
He poked me. Actually put his hands on me and poked me, the fuck!
"I'm talking to YOU!! ... Okay.. this was too much. I had enough.
"What's up, Boss?? Is there a problem??"
"Yes. YOU farted in front of my wife!" - this he punctuated by poking me in the chest with his bony little finger. This guy was not only a turd. He was friggin' stupid!!
"Did I??" I enquired.
"Yes. You did!"
"Well... I'm very, very sorry! I apologize. I didn't realize that it was her turn to fart!" I quipped. Deliberately putting him in a position to either hit me and have done with it, or to go sit down and quit acting like a dick.
His wife busted out laughing. Everyone else busted out laughing. Forty six to fifty black belts stood up with business faces on, just in case he was thinking of acting foolish, and he finally realized that he was not really acting in his own best interests and went and sat down.

To let them know that there were no hard feelings, we bought them a round of cocktails, chipped in for their dinner, and one of the guys ran out and picked up a pair of tickets for them at the base movie theatre.

Eventually, he softened up and we got a good laugh out of him, so it all worked out well in the end.

To this day I don't know who cut that fart! Nobody would ever admit to it.....

HEY! I WON!!

Thanx, Flatman!