I Despise, Detest, Disdain the "F" Word.

I fucking hate the “f” word. No, obviously not that “f” word. I mean the one that refers to that normal, everyday human body process without which we’d all blow up like my fat fucking face, but all over. Most people experience flatulence an average of 14 times per day. And contrary to popular belief, nitrogen is the chief component in our fundament fumes, not methane. (So once and for all, stop with all the bullshit about cow poots destroying the ozone. Their exhalations and burps are the culprits. If you really want to save the planet, fuck Chic-Fil-A: Eat more beef.)

The most interesting thing about gut gas is that if you hold it in to be polite, it will diffuse back into the blood stream and then pass through the lungs… and then you’ll exhale it. Ewwwwww. No wonder there is so much butt breath out there. And I thought it was just smokers whose shit-smelling oral emanations can gag a maggot. Turns out it’s sphincter squeezers too. It’s best to just let that poot go free next time you’re in church or Kroger or the gynecologist’s stirrups. It’s not like it’s going to kill anybody.

What would kill me, however, is to utter the “f” word associated with backside vapors. I have never been able to say it, and all of my family and friends love to taunt me. In high school, gaggles of gifted geeks would chant just under their breaths the “f” word behind me I class. They’d draw out the effffffff as long as possible to replicate the sound of a silent-and-deadly. Assholes!

Throughout my life, people who’ve seemed like genuinely humble and kind folk have routinely tried to trip me up and force me to enunciate that most abhorrent of terms. Fortunately my father provided me with a plethora of euphemisms in addition to the regulars (passing gas, breaking wind, pooting, tooting): you’ve got your tear-ass, your fee, fi, and foe, and— the most serious of all— the seat-buster. Lord knows I hope I never feel a seat-buster or a tear-ass coming on in public. But in the event that I do, could you please pull my finger?