If you’ve read this blog with any regularity, there’s a likely-good chance you’ve chuckled now and then. Maybe even snickered a time or two. Why, I might guess an occasional chortle or possibly a guffaw has erupted once or twice.
But I’m certain of one thing. In fact, I’m so confident about it I’m even willing to bet your house on it. At one time or another you’ve asked yourself, “Gee, I wonder just how low this guy will go for a laugh?”
Truly, trying to write funny is an exhausting endeavor. Oh sure, you’re saying. How hard can it be? Conjure up a couple straight lines, plunk down a punch line after each and ipso facto – high hilarity shall ensue.
Notso fasto. It takes time. It takes a lot of wit. It takes mucho brainpower. And sometimes, it takes a ton of research.
Which is where I came up with this one. After months upon months of relentlessly rapping out the same keyword search, I have not found the cure for cancer. But I have found there are a lot of stories centered around the lowly-but-not-lovely … fart.
Hence, I bring you – Farts in the news. And why Part 1? Because while funny may come and go … flatulence is eternal.
And I’ll probably need to push out another blog like this sometime down the road.
E Pluribus Fartum
Thanks to our federal government there are not only civil rights, but now uncivil rights. In January the Washington Post reported that, after many of his co-workers complained, an unnamed Social Security Administration employee was slapped with a formal complaint. He was accused of creating a “hostile work environment” because of his non-stop ass-blasts. This even though he’d provided documentation of a medical condition that caused uncontrollable flatulence. But when senior management caught wind of the reprimand, “it was immediately rescinded,” an agency spokeswoman said.
“… with liberty and flatulence, for all …”
Breaking the wind limit
Go ahead, fart my day
Last year in Teaneck, New Jersey, a man allegedly pulled a gun on his neighbor after hearing the man pass gas in front of his apartment door. Police in Teaneck say the aggrieved apartment-dweller had been having ongoing noise issues with this neighbor and when he let one rip, well, it was the last straw. However, turns out it was the victim who ended up on the wrong side of the law. He was charged with aggravated assault. As for the neighbor? Lucky for him there’s not yet DNA testing for air. He could have been facing aggravating assault charges.
And speaking of neighbors …
… a concerned woman in Detroit called 911 earlier this month after overhearing what sounded like a violent argument coming from her neighbors’ house, namely a woman’s screams of “Stop! No!,” each time followed by a loud noise. When officers arrived, they discovered that the woman was being terrorized by her boyfriend’s farts. The man apparently was answering every yell with earsplitting butt rebuttals. The officers in their report noted they “cleared the scene expeditiously.” Said Police Chief Harry Anderson: “It’s quite often that we respond to things that have a funny twist to them.”
Taking a fart out of crime
It would seem one bad smell led to another recently in Leicester, England. Back in June, two of three police officers in a patrol car were suffering, at the mercy of the gaseous results of the third officer’s high-protein diet. They rolled down the windows to bring in some fresh air, but then recognized the distinct odor of marijuana wafting in, which led them to a nearby house, a.k.a. pot-growing factory. Seven people were arrested and nearly $19,000 worth of crops was confiscated. A police source said, “It was a good collar, and it was all down to this officer and his flatulence.”
I wonder if there’s a commendation for that.
While it seems gas-powered crime may not pay, it doesn’t mean you can’t make a name for yourself using it. For it seems …
… thar’s gold in them thar toots!
