The Gas Company

I married into the gassiest family on the planet. No, not oil riggers who live in Texas. Think more like bean eating, fiber-loving, green cloud excreters. I knew this going in. It wasn’t a problem for me…I have next to no sense of smell. Although, I was sometimes embarrassed by the outright blatancy of these tooters, I was willing to over look the entire issue for love. …until recently.

Recently, it came to weigh very heavily on me that my goal of raising kids to the ripe old age of 18 before throwing them out of my house and changing the locks may never come to fruition. Not only does this sadden me, it leaves me with an impending sense of dread. The reason you see, is because my oldest child is going to live with me forever. I’m never going to be able to marry her off.

See, she’s not ever going to be a trust fund baby. The most I can hope for is that I will be able to one day purchase that 12th goat that will stand as the biggest dowry upgrade that anyone inside of Zanzibar has ever seen…either that, or finding some poor deaf mute in Papua New Guinea who is oblivious to their olfactory living conditions who won’t mind taking her in.

The in-laws find it appropriate to bust ass whenever the urge strikes. Walking through a store, in mixed company and most horrifyingly at the dinner table - all fair play for this quartet of flatulence factories. Each time this happens, I remind my husband that polite society dictate that no one anally omit noxious odors before witnesses. He merely giggles. Or so he did, until our lovely little girl "ripped a hole" in one of my dining room chairs while eating. It was like the heavens opened and shined a dawning light upon his psyche, he must have had visions of the fleeting Zanzibari goat herders slipping through his grasp and our dreams of a quiet homestead squashed…forever.

“Honey, if you need to make stinky tooters, you should excuse yourself to do it in the bathroom; not at the dinner table. It is rude.”

5 minutes later, my daughter loudly announces, “I NEED TO FART!” She bolts from the table. By going into the bathroom, I had actually meant – go into the bathroom, close the door and discretely break wind. My daughter’s interpretation was to barely aim her rear end into the bathroom from the doorway and cut the cheese as if her life depended on it. PPPFFFFFFT, POOOOOT, PFFFFFTBANG! [at this point, I’m certain that I will need to buy her new underwear]. “Ahhhhh, much better!” Then rampant giggling ensues…and not from my oldest, my pride & joy. Nope, I look over to find hubby’s shoulders shaking with mirth.

That night, I sobbed myself to sleep. I’m quite certain that the faint sounds of bleating goats floated away on the wind of my fitful slumber…