Since an early age we have been pitting ourselves against others in competition. As a wee lad I remember competing with my playmates. Racing across the playground. Playing games of kickball. Figuring out who could walk on top of the monkey bars the furthest before being carried to the nurse. I always found myself in the thick of another competition.
As a dad I see it in my four sons. Who can get in the house first after we all went shopping. Who can eat all their food the fastest. While I'm not certain it's actually a competition, who can be in the shower the longest but still come out barely clean. Often they are unspoken competitions. But competition just takes over everything.
I found myself in an unspoken competition today. I didn't realize it was a competition at first. I thought it was just two guys doing what guys do. The competition got heated and one of us was going to have to relent. Here's the story.
The last few days I have been eating a rather unhealthy amount of trigger foods. Trigger foods are foods that change my constitution for the worse. Three days ago I had hamburgers. Hamburger meat is hit or miss as a trigger food...but this time it chose to be a trigger. Two days ago I had a bunch of black beans and chicken in a sweet and spicy sauce. Yep, trigger. Last night we had tacos. For lunch today I had the sweet and spicy chicken leftovers. What the hell am I thinking?!?!
As I sat in our small conference room, waxing eloquent on work things, I felt my stomach begin to do the tumultuous gymnastic routine it always does when something isn't settling right. It sounded like I was percolating coffee in one of those old school stove top coffee makers -- but in my stomach. Pressure was building. Guttural groans were emanating. I instinctively grabbed for my stomach to show those in the meeting that I wasn't actually farting. I didn't have that reputation mind you and I didn't have any intention of starting one.
Oh, I certainly let a few silent farts go during the meeting. SBD's. The first few were test farts to see if what came out was going to clear the room. These farts were clean as a whistle. As I gained confidence that the farts were without stench I boldly let out larger ones to relieve some of the pressure. This is a dangerous game I was playing though. A sort of Russian roulette.
Some farts are what I call ghost farts. They come from the very end of the large intestine and they have no intention of making themselves a nuisance. They actually feel insubstantial when they come out with a small short pfffft. Other farts come from a location I believe scientists found to be fueled by the fires of hell itself. I don't know if you ever felt the differentiation from a ghost fart and one that comes from the fires of hell. The best way I can explain it is that it feels like it came from very very deep in your intestines. Like that large stone ball Indiana Jones had to run from in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The fart moves around stuff that might be in its way and you can feel it actually going through the intestinal track. The last of my pressure relieving farts, to my horror, was coming from there.
I started to feel myself breaking into a sweat fearing this hell fart might now see daylight. I could no longer focus on what was being said in the meeting. If they asked me questions I couldn't hear them. I was already having a dialog within myself about how I'm going to get out of this. I noticed people getting up from their chairs and realized the meeting ended. Thank you!! People looked to me and said something but all I heard were muffled sounds. It's time I left my laptop and b-lined to the restroom. This particular hell fart was not going to be introduced to my coworkers today.
The restroom was just down the hall and to the left. As I passed the receptionist she was about to issue some sort of greeting but the look of concern on my face made her close her mouth and nod as if she understood the circumstances. I reached the restroom without incident and to my delight, if I could have any delight right now, the restroom was empty. A little about me, I'm a solitary pooper. I perform better when there's no one around to witness whatever substance or noises come out of my body.
As I jumped into the first stall I immediately dropped my pants and assumed the position on the throne. I think I heard a group of angels sing as I locked the stall door. However, just as I was about to unleash hell on the toilet the restroom door opened and the angel singing stopped. Son of a bitch!! Someone decided they need to evacuate right at the moment I was to fill the restroom with my brand of commotion. I was in a holding pattern. The intruder took up the stall next to mine and we both waited for a few minutes. I looked down and saw his Addidas sneakers and wondered if he was a solitary pooper as well.
I decided to test the waters by letting go a little bit of the hell fart. This took extraordinary effort as that monster wanted out. The sound that came out resembled the high pitch squeaking the air makes when escaping a stretched balloon opening. It was short but echoed in the cavernous toilet bowl. Another turd burglar came into the restroom to use the urinal. My next door neighbor didn't seem to care. He met my squeaky challenge with his own fart that sounded like a heavy fabric being ripped.
Another little tidbit about me, I find farts to be extremely humorous. After my stallmate's rip I was stifling a snicker. The hell fart in my belly subsided for a bit offering me some relief. Unfortunately, from my experience, this only means that at some point in the near future the hell fart was going to come back "more powerful than you can possibly imagine" to quote Ben Kenobi. I didn't dwell on that though as I was just relieved to not have the intense pressure.
My stallmate wasn't done though. He let off a series of machine gun blasts that made me shoot air out my nose as I suppressed a laugh. I couldn't let him get too far ahead in this competition though. It was my turn and it appeared we were on the same flatulent cycle. We had a sort of dueling banjos but more like dueling assholes. My effort was a triumphant blast that echoed throughout the restroom and undoubtedly made it's way to the receptionist because the urinal turd burglar opened the restroom door to escape as my trumpeting arse started. I could feel the pressure starting to build in my abdomen and I started to sweat again. While I was in the perfect place to deal with this I was still nervous about what I had ahead of me.
We reached a moment of silence and my stallmate shuffled around a bit on his side of the wall. He might have been adjusting his position on his throne though because he eventually let loose with a small grunt which gave way to a Havana Omelet. For those of you not in the know:
Havana Omelet - a load of diarrhea that creates a series of loud splashes in the toilet water.
I was both repulsed and intrigued. My stallmate may have been just firing off warning shots initially to scare me off in preparation for what he needed to do. I sat there as my gut started to ache from the pressure. My back was wet from the sweat. A new urinal turd burglar entered the restroom but I couldn't worry about it now. It was time for me to end this competition. I heard my stallmate yanking a few sheets of toilet paper from his roll. "Oh no you don't.", I thought. You aren't going to get out of here without hearing my game winning rectal tremor.
I shifted on my seat. Feet go out a little wider to ensure I have maximum support. The walls are probably a bit gross so I won't brace myself there. The pressure reached a sort of event horizon. There's no escape now. The hell fart started off with a long hissing sound like a fuse lit for a large firework or keg of TNT. I felt the air in the toilet swirling around my rear end like an F5 tornado was in it's infancy. There were a few popping sounds then it all stopped. I still felt pressure but nothing came out.
It was at this point I surmised that my stallmate might have realized something big was going down and he remained quiet in his stall. I'd like to think he was terrified and afraid to move out of fear that whatever was coming would find him. Before I could ponder this thought a low bass sounding machine gun started issuing from my buttocks. It was how I'd imagine some sort of giant swamp creature would sound as you peered into his cave. The machine gun grew louder and the force of the air started to feel like it was tearing the leathery Cheerio at the end of my large intestine. I started to tear up both because it was amazingly funny but the relief from the pressure was the greatest feeling in the world. My fart was achieving world peace.
The deep machine gun started to crescendo as it left that point in the performance in favor of a higher pitched random popping sound like I was cooking some microwave popcorn in my stall. I think the urinal turd burglar let out a laugh...or maybe it was my stallmate conceding to my superior flatulence. The popcorn lasted for a surprising long time. I imagined sparks shooting out of my arse and popping before they fizzled out. This seemed to be the finale of the hell fart as the speed of the popcorn increased and the sound slowly decreased. It ended as it began with some noisy hissing which stirred the air again in the toilet. Feeling exhausted a let out a loud sigh. My stallmate seemed to be in the throws of a laughing fit that he was trying to hold back. The urinal turd burglar got a ring side seat to the show and I believe he was so amazed that he even forgot to wash his hands when he left.
Normally, after a much smaller performance I hang around in the stall until the bathroom is clear of people so I don't have to make eye contact with anyone. This time though, this time I proudly pulled up my pants, went to the sink to wash and dry my hands and face then left the stage. My stallmate put up a valiant effort in this competition however I was prepared for the battle. This day was mine.