The Price of Gas

      Here’s the thing about farts.   We all do and if you say you don’t you’re a liar. It’s simple science, like evolution. Dr. Oz says we all fart at least once an hour.  I’ll bet Jesus even farted.

     This is where the conversation drifted. (Excuse the pun.)  I believe we’d been talking about dating as we sat on a posh patio outside a foo-foo hotel nightclub. The moon was the sliver of a smile while Venus dangled below on an invisible line of fishing filament.    You think that stuff is natural and normal?  God creates an art installation every night and probably goes through cases of filament and hot glue.  She has an open tab at Pearl.

     So we sat on slickly designed benches, Maria in her stilettos, Deb in her diaphanous scarves, my friend–who- shall- remain- nameless because I have no money for an attorney …and me.  

     My friend–who- shall- remain-nameless lives in New York and works in the art world.  She’s a little sylph of a thing who just got back from London where she attended Jude Law’s birthday party.  I wonder if any of HIS girlfriends ever had gas attacks?  Was flatulence a deal-breaker? Are models and actors exempt from basic bodily functions? Is there a clause?  And what do HIS farts smell like?  Are they somewhere between The Road to Perdition and Sherlock Holmes?  Kinda gunsmokey and fish n’ chips?  But  I’m only dropping names here to put farts in context.

     Two of us are married, so farts are old news and not particularly a problem.  Except that Deb is a teacher and also does some tutoring on the side. It’s not a problem when she’s with her husband.  They’re used to that sort of thing after years of wedded bliss. But she shared a particularly funny story about sitting between two twelve-year-old boys while fighting against an impending fart.  She lost.  No one knows farts better than twelve-year-old boys.  Needless to say, math was no longer the focus.  Just to see her imitate their faces was worth whatever humiliation she suffered at the time.  THESE are the stories we pass down to our grandkids.

     My cousin Bobby likes to tell a story of when I was a little girl.  We were at my aunt and uncle’s house for dinner.  Bobby had made a little devise out of a cut length from a clothes hanger bent into a “u” shape. He had stretched a thick rubber-band from one end to the other and in the middle of the rubber-band he’d looped a metal washer.  When he wound the washer around and around, sat on the device, and lifted one cheek, it sounded like a fart as it unwound and slapped against the chair. 

      But I thought he was really doing the deed …so I did too.  Kind of like the Call of the Wild, I suppose.  Everyone was amazed that I could summon them at will.  I think my sister wet her pants laughing.  There I stood in the living room as peals of laughter filled the little house. Of course, I cried when I realized the joke was on ME. Here’s the thing about farts, they are both humiliating and hysterical.  I think this may have been the first time I really realized that the human condition could be up one minute, and WAY down the next.

     However, this story is really about fifty-somethings who may occasionally wish to date people from time to time.  My friend-who-shall- remain-nameless …no …let’s give her a name so I don’t have to type THAT all the damned time.  We’ll call her Beatrice.  Beatrice and I hoisted our cocktails on the patio of the foo foo nightclub in a toast of commiseration.  We’d  both been on dates and had become bloated and uncomfortable. We couldn’t wait to go home before the unthinkable happened.  Go home ALONE,  I might add.  

    Oh, how would we ever meet someone when our bodies seemed to rebel against everything we put in them?    It was one thing to be in a long-term relationship and be comfortable enough to let er’ rip…but how in the world would we ever get to the long- term part with silent sliders an ever-present dilemma?  And FORGET sex.  All of that motion, those positions, those orifices??   For all I know, I fart in my sleep.

     People DO,  y’know.

     Beatrice had actually decided to make an appointment with a gastroenterologist.   I told her to write things down and get back to me.  

     It was in the spirit of this conversation that I was inspired.    What about a dating site for gassy singles!?

     We could call it The Gas Station, Where Flatulent Flirts Find Forever Flames.   (Maybe flames is not such a great word coupled with gas…I’ll have to work on this.)

     F.F.F.F.F. would be a site where attractive, professional people could meet and get the fart stigma out of the way right from the start.  Singles would expect that there might be an issue with flatulence.   Incontinence, however, would not be acceptable.  That would have to be a different web site, Poopy Pals, or something.    In another ten years that might be the dating site for which I'd feel a need, but not now.

     I can see it now.  We would set up an algorithm for people with specific food allergies. We’d cull lactose intolerant people and match them up.  We could pair stress related flatulents, alcohol farters, and people with every gut malady on the face of the earth.  Then, from there, we could match people by the usual superficial methods…height, weight, hair color, activities, etc.

     I need to get on this NOW.  This is my quest.  There are gassy, lonely people out there.  I have a purpose to fulfill.

    OH!  Excuse me!   I really should avoid apples….