I know what you're thinking. That must have been the cabbage that I've had for lunch. Or the eggs from breakfast. No, no, no, it was definitely beans in the salad.
Suddenly your face is turning green and you can't hold it in anymore. You try to release it really quietly. It doesn't go like you planned. You fart with a low frequency sound that is tapering into funny higher pitched composition towards the end of your concert.
Then you get the eyes. Half of the room is laughing at you like you intoxicated them with laughing gas while the other half is giving a sharp look like you're trying to poison them.
To bow at this point would mean pushing your luck. So you lower your head and hope no one strikes you.
Lets take a look what went wrong,
whats a typical fart composed of, what gives it distinctive smell and why it can be ignited. Idea for this was sparked when @zest was asking about methane on chat. As chat was laggy and he didn't get the answer I thought I should clear the air about this one.
It was a regular evening. Nice food and drink to go along.
Then you get the feeling of butterflies in your stomach that want to fly away. But you are a problem solver. You think to go over there in a corner. It would be like gas filtered through your clothes spreading from omnidirectional source.
If luck is on your side you may stay undetected if we exclude Splerions (fictional creature from @suesa story - Pheromones (Space War, Part 1)).
After thorough thought process you come to conclusion that you actually don't know what is the cause of reaction inside you. So if you cannot tell the density of gas you're going to release and how fast is going to spread better not risk it.
Your brilliant mind finds a solution.
You better tell everyone that you need to go on number 2 and run to the toilet. But do not release it while running. Turbulent airflow that you are creating with your swift movements would just increase the dispersion perpendicular to your movement direction. So you best hold it in a little longer.
With your awkward moves you draw some attention but you arrive at relieve place just in time. When you finally try to break the wind someone knocks at the door urging you to hurry up.
Luckily you've seen a lot of youtube videos and you carry lighter in your pocket. Better to destroy the evidence.
Congratulations!
You just burned nitrogen (20-90%), hydrogen (0-50%), methane (0-10%), carbon dioxide (10-30%) and oxygen (0-10%). You were lucky enough to have produced either hydrogen or methane that are flammable. What they didn’t show you on youtube is that not every fart is flammable. Only about half of people have archaea (bacteria) which is necessary to produce methane. Of course it also depends on what kind of food you ate.
Being on a diet and eating healthy food usually makes scent even worse. One of the reasons for foul smell are undigested carbohydrates. They sit in your gut and ferment. Hydrogen sulfide, the main culprit with the worst smell is produced by yeast during wine fermentation.
But in the end you realize you're just a normal healthy person who farts on average 10 to 20 times per day.
My goal was to present facts about flatulence in a funny way. Hopefully no one took it personally or was offended by this content.
All pictures taken from pixabay.com
Gas Mask, Abdominal Pain, Run
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