Gas, not just for cows

As if the title isn't warning enough, I do feel compelled to warn anyone reading that this is a post filled with potty humor. Maybe living with 3 people of the male persuasion has finally warped me. Nah! Things that 12 year old boys find funny really are funny. The rest of us just spend too much time trying to act grown-up to admit it. So here's my break from dignified mom to potty humorist. (Stop laughing! I'm dignified sometimes. Occasionally. OK, practiccally never. But I could be if I wanted to be.)

I vividly remember when I became a mom for the first time (when you birth a more than 9 lb. baby, it's pretty hard to forget). But unlike other more maternal sorts, one of the things I remember the most is how dismayed the recovery nurse was to come into my room with a tightly wrapped W. to discover that I had eaten the meal the kitchen had sent to me. The vegetable of the day was broccoli and she asked me, filled with hope, if someone else had eaten it for me. But I crushed her hopes by admitting that broccoli was one of my favorite vegetables. Apparently broccoli is a gas producer and by eating it all, she was now certain that my sweet, sleeping W. would nurse on my broccoli milk and turn into a screaming gassy demon. Since broccoli has never adversely affected me, I wasn't convinced it would affect him either. And it didn't.

Broccoli may not affect me but something I ate either yesterday or the day before did though. Most people can be nice and discreet, heading to the bathroom when gas strikes. This was not so for me yesterday. I had a full-on, Bean-o wouldn't have been able to stop it, peel the paint, wilt the flowers, and walk around in a toxic cloud kind of reaction to whatever it was I ate (and heaven knows I'd like to know what caused it so I could never eat it again--actually, my entire family would like to know out of self-preservation).

You know it's bad when your preteen children vacate the *floor* of the house you currently occupy. These are the children who generally laugh and blame on each other every errant fart or even slightly off smell they encounter. But yesterday W. held his nose and squeaked out an aggrieved, "Mom! You're burning my nose," as he headed up the stairs away from me. All I could do was laugh and shoot yet more inadvertant fumes out my beleagured bum. R. winced as she got in the car with me to go to dance and told me our car now smelled as bad as daddy's car. ::snort:: On reflection though, she's not wrong and I wonder if the smell will ever come out of the upholstery!

I dropped her at dance and rather than go into the studio, I opted to go grocery shopping for a few things we needed, thinking that motion would help. After all, I think I only had one sneak out during my cycle class and I'm not sure it was as overpowering as my later efforts (but it could just be my nose was blunted by the hideous stench of body odor--my usual fragrance after that class). Illogical hope, of course, that walking and clenching would keep the rot sealed in, but when you have started to feel a bit like pigpen on Charlie Brown, existing inside your own cloud, you'll grasp at anything. So I wheeled the cart around, expelling puff after small puff, crop-dusting in every aisle. Sometimes I knew they were coming; sometimes I felt like the dog, whipping around in shocked surprise to see where that noise and smell had come from. And then furtively speeding up to leave the aisle before anyone else came down it and connected me to the lingering fug. Not that I think I fooled anyone. My biggest test at the store came when I had to stand in line to check out, foolishly having gotten too many items to use the self-check. Yes, here's my best bit of advice: when you have gas such that you are contributing to global warming equal to the rate of 100 gassy cows, don't buy more than 12 items. Go to the self-check and spare the cashier, who cannot leave her post, the noxious cloud that is tacked to your backside like Peter Pan's shadow to his feet. As I said, I did not do this and I feel like I should apologize to the poor cashier. An SBD (silent but deadly) snuck out as I was standing there waiting (as you might imagine, all the folks who had seen me in the aisles steered clear of standing behind me in line) and it had to have taken a massive force of will for the poor girl not to tear-up and turn green. Either than or her sense of smell was blunted by a cold to end all colds, which is possible given the recent temperatures here.

Finished with my shopping, I returned to the dance studio where I intended to just wait in the car for R. to finish her class. But the temperature quickly drove me inside (I am reluctant to squander all non-renewable forms of gas so didn't want to sit there running the car to stay warm). Luckily I managed to cork myself for the half hour so the other moms sitting there didn't suffer needlessly. None of them were particularly friendly so I'm not 100% certain why I made the effort not to smoke them out. But when R. came out, I stood up to leave with her and it was like letting all the air out of a balloon. 30 minutes of build-up couldn't have boded well on the stench front and I don't think I've ever pushed R. out of the studio faster. Wonder if the smell will come out of their upholstery too?!

We headed home again to the bosom of my loving family, who scattered in all directions when they saw me come in the door. There were no complaints when the kids were told to go to bed as it took them a full floor away from me and my rear. Wonder if stink rises like hot air? That just left poor D. to have his nose hairs singed. I did try and take pity on him, choosing to try and slough off the rotting intestines in the basement but apparently that didn't solve the problem. D. wrinkled his nose, crossed his eyes, and hopped into bed, wondering all the while at the fortitude of the dog, who was curled up in the warmest spot on the bed--right behind the heating vent that was my crack. Of course, the dog eats poop so sewage smells are appealing to her, either that or she was in a coma.

You'll all be pleased to hear, I'm certain (if you haven't already clicked away in disgust at the "too much information" contained here) that when I woke up in the middle of the night, the stinky gas problem had vanished. Of course, when I sat up to wrestle my slippers off my suddenly warm toes, I belched rather loudly (Why? Because I could, I suppose. No, seriously, I don't know what was wrong with me last night either). Dave mumbled, "You're so hot," before rolling over and snoring loudly. Yup, sex on a stick. That's me. ;-)

Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. This is indeed the mother of the newest member of the Junior Cotillion. If you weren't wondering how R. got invited before, I'm sure you are now!