When I walked into Latin Class on the first day of 8th grade I knew something felt different. It wasn't anything I could explain to you in definite terms at the time, but when I sat down at the grouped-together cluster of four desks in Mr. Curtis' classroom, I felt…empowered. What had happened, and what I had yet to understand, was that I had been endowed with one of the most powerful abilities in the known universe. An ability so terrible, so infinite in its heinous nature that I dared not speak of it over these past ten odd years.
What I'm about to reveal may shock or offend you, but all I can tell you is that I never asked for this to happen to me. Like Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider, or Superman being sent to Earth from Krypton, the reasoning and justification behind these endowments remains to be fully articulated. One thing is for sure however: to whom much is given, much is also expected.
And on that first day of Latin class, I was given the ability to let loose the most foul and disgusting farts ever smelt on the Eastern seaboard, on command.
Now at first this might not seem like a gift at all-in fact, most of you reading this probably think it sounds more like a curse-but believe me, it had its upsides. I will get to those in a moment, but right now I want to give you a better idea of the mechanics of my methane.
Thinking about how to describe the smell of my farts has proved a trying task. The intimate medium of smell has so many subtleties to it, I'm not sure if I have any real bearing on how to quantify it properly. But if I had to try, I would probably most closely compare the smell to a field of rotting, maggot-infested cod carcasses, sprinkled with death.
These were not your average, everyday farts to say the least. In fact, I've only encountered gas-passing of this caliber maybe a handful of times in my life. Think about the top five worst farts you've smelled in your entire lifetime-the one's that have cleared out enclosed spaces, ruined meals, and destroyed friendships. Then imagine ripping these bad boys at will, one after another after another.
After hearing about the potency of the ass I was ripping, you're probably more convinced than ever that this was a burden I had to bear. And you're right to some degree, but not in the context you're thinking. You see, middle school was a tough time for me socially, since I was morbidly overweight. On top of that, things had become extremely cliquey since elementary school, and I was definitely a member of the have-nots.
I hadn't the slightest experience in even the initial stages of courtship and dating yet, and at the end of this same year I would go to my 8th grade prom alone. I remember thinking about this situation and how I was deemed inferior on some shared scale of social adequacy in my immediate environment. I thought nothing could be worse in life and that it would never change. It all seemed so over-powering, so widespread, so confirmed like the color of the sky, the sound the letter "T" makes, or the taste of salt; I wasn't cool.
The effects of uncoolness reared their ugly heads in environments outside of school as well, like sporting events, parent's social interactions, and the general dynamics of our small town. It permeated every visible layer of society from my perspective, and I thought for sure that it was just the way things were.
I did have some friends though, three of whom were in Latin Class with me. It made for the best table in all of my classes, having those three guys there in the corner first period. The hellish nature of what Casga, Ignatius and Wyro (we all had Latin names during class) went through that year can only be described as pure torture, as I (Marcus) ripped, dealt, and discharged all manner of noxious fumes throughout the entire period. Wyro definitely had it the worst since he sat right next to me. What took things to the next level however, were how my farting skills began to progress.
In short, I learned to contort my butt cheeks in manners that discharged the gas in different directions, as well as making them completely silent. If you don't know anything about the fine art of farting, most of the noise comes from your ass cheeks slapping together, and by using the hard surface of the chair below you to keep your fleshy buttocks separated and tilting either backward or forward on an axis. I could discharge my in virtually any direction.
As time went on, I developed more advanced moves for my SBDs (silent but deadlies). Here are a few weapons I added to my arsenal:
- Learning to create a funnel with my legs and blow down into my crotch for a speed attack on Casga.
- Slinking all the way over to my right, leaning to the side and ass grabbing with my right hand for silence as I bombed Wyro close range.
- Carpet-bombing the whole table (a technique I mastered on my bathroom breaks).
I was in my element like I had never been before, or ever since then (in any aspect of my life), and I found the entire situation unceasingly hilarious.
I have to be honest with you, having read over what I just typed, I'm fairly ashamed of myself. Even being able to describe my concepts on controlling farts is something that no doubt every member of my lineage dating back tens of generations would be ashamed to hear me speak of. But to get to the root of why I enjoyed this ridiculous behavior so much you need to realize how fucking hilarious it was to me.
I couldn't tell you what parts of my brain are active in finding bathroom humor funny, but what I can tell you is that it's as ingrained into who I am as disliking the taste of lima beans. I still find it funny to this day and I hope it's still funny to me when I'm 50, because that's how good it feels to think about it.
But the majority of the hedonistic appeal probably involved the interaction that took place between my friends and me as a result of my farts. Because once they realized that my abilities weren't fading over time, and if anything were progressing, they began to mount a resistance.
Continue to The Gift of Farting on Command, Part 2 »