The F-Word

It's time to talk about something serious.

No, not the ever-changing font on this blog (I'm working on it).

It's time to talk about farts.

Let me first say that I grew up in a house where "fart" was the F-word. The real F-word wasn't even on the radar in my house. Fart was as bad as it got. The fact that I've used the F-word three times in this post already is already making me feel ashamed. And my mother has shut her laptop, again.

Some people grew up in houses where farts were hilarious. I'm told many of these houses were male-dominated. Something about guys and farts, I don't know, it's just magic, I guess. I can recall a family from my childhood that had five boys, and they were big into farts. Farts were all the rage around their house.

But in our house -- no. This was not discussed. We didn't even have cutesie euphemisms like "toot" or "foofer." (Is that a real one? My husband claims so.) We just ignored the subject altogether, and that was that. I remember encountering children who made jokes about farts, or talked about farting, and not knowing what to say to them because they were so wildly inappropriate.

However, if you want to get into the comedy world, fart jokes come with the territory. Fart jokes to the comedy world are like flossing jokes to the dentist world, or like fart jokes to the proctologist world.

Let me clarify, I still don't think actual farting -- in real life -- is that great. They're just not something to celebrate, okay?

Fart noises, on the other hand, are pretty hilarious.

When I was a senior in high school, like, eighteen years old and technically an adult, my friend Sarah and I would go into the school library and make fart noises into our hands. We would find a table in the way back, put down our stuff, and just sit there making sporadic fart noises until we couldn't control our hysterical laughter, or until we were asked to leave.

I am still laughing about it, right now. That's how funny it is to me.

When my husband and I were first married, living in our first place (my parents' basement), I got up to use the restroom while we were watching TV. The bathroom was right by the couch, so I knew he could hear everything I did in there, (which actually makes me really uncomfortable) so I stood in the bathroom and starting making the loudest fart-noises I could into my hands. It was difficult because I was laughing so hard at my own hilariousness. When I came out, I looked at him with my hand on my stomach, like "Oh man I do NOT feel well" and he looked at me like "I cannot believe you are my wife" and it was great. Then I went upstairs to use the bathroom for real.

Now that I'm older, the F-word has taken on new meaning. Currently I am a mother of two soon-to-be-fart-loving boys. I don't know if you know this, but small children will just let them fly any time they feel like it. There is no shame with them. Babies in particular love to let 'em rip, and you can't really help but go with it. Even my mom doesn't get embarrassed. EVEN MY MOM.

Then, when you're potty-training a child, every noise is like a fire alarm, making you jump up with "Do you have to go? Do you have to go potty, honey?" and there isn't as much time laugh as you might like. Instead, you are at the mercy of their digestive system, sitting for hours reading the same story on the floor of your bathroom, just praying to hear one little toot-a-root.

Okay, that just got a little too real. I apologize. I'm not used to talking about this stuff. I'm more used to making fart noises in my hands for cheap laughs.