Near-Lethal Farts

Passing gas has been a great source of humor since Adam's first fart aka the undivine wind.

Throughout history comedians have eked jokes from this human frailty.

My best i.e. worst fart was at the Ritz in New York City. Public Image was on stage. I had eaten a bad oyster and my intestines gurgled with an exiting vapor. Richie Boy and Werthel were standing next to me. I told them to vacate the dance floor.

"Something bad is in my gut."

How bad can it be?" Werthel was the meanest man in the world and wanted to know if it would kill members of the audience.

"Bad, but not deadly."

"How bad?"

Werthel and Richie Boy had spent many evenings with me eating BBQ, drinking beer, and watching Monday Night Football and they recognized the urgency of my warning. All three of us were aware of the other's weaknesses.

"Bad enough to clear where I'm standing by ten feet in each direction." I was dying to cut loose.

"Werthel, let's go." Richie Boy had a big honker. Only a hound dog was more sensitive to smells than him.

"We'll meet you in the balcony."

Richie led Werthel to the stairs and they gave me a thumbs-up, as if I were competing in the Olympics.

Two seconds later the fart ripped through through my jeans.

I ran to the stairs and joined my friends at the balcony railing. Public Image was playing behind a screen. The crowd was pissed at not being able to see the band. They wanted a show not shadow puppet theater, then the crowd parted in the center of the concert hall exactly where I had been standing thirty seconds before.

Their faces were contorted with disgust and their eyes searched the nearest faces for the guilty party. No one stood in the circle of death for a good two minutes after which the anger at Johnny Rotten's band overwhelmed their sense of smell. Bottles flew through the air to the stage. The bouncers tried to stop the mayhem, but the hail of bottles came fast.

"Nice fart." Richie Boy was proud of me.

Werthel could only laugh, but not everyone these days considersed a fart so funny.

A SC motorist was arrested for drunk driving. The police drove the guilty party to the station. At one point the drunk man farted in the proximity of the arresting police officer. It was so bad that the officer charged the DUI offender with assault and battery.

Crime in America today.