It was a Friday night back in my sophomore year of high school. Naturally this meant I would be spending my entire evening eating Cheetos and playing Nintendo 64 with Jon, my neighbor and best buddy. This particular November weekend, however, Jon's parents and sister were out of town, baring the marvels of his father's liquor cabinet to our teenage whims.
Today, almost twenty-one, Jon is no expert in the subtleties of drink mixing -- to say nothing of back then. Upon my arrival at his house, he promptly announced his plans to inebriate himself beyond all reckoning (yes, at sixteen, we were still pretty much virgins to alcohol--pathetic, I know). I'm not sure if the first cup of stuff he handed me could rightly be called a "concoction," seeing as it was little more than a rum Slushee. My first gulp burned a beeline from my mouth to my colon in ten seconds flat, and I threw in the towel. Jon, however, had to be the hero.
Enduring what must have been the worst esophageal torment of his life, Jon downed at least three or four more twelve-ounce cups of the ice-rum mixture while I feebly nursed the remainder of mine through a straw. When the need for snacks hit us, we had little choice other than his mom's stash of Olestra-laden Pringles. Ah, Olestra... those of you who remember the powers of that wonderful little mystery ingredient will know where this is going.
Not ten minutes after polishing off the last cans, the ass-winds were blowing with gale force. The inevitable farting contest ensued, which, despite my mightiest efforts, I eventually had to concede to Jon; whatever my guts cooked up, I was always bested in the odor, sound, moisture, frequency and magnitude categories. In retrospect, my sparse, arid bursts were probably a good thing -- for tonight, poop floated on the winds of portent.
It so happened that for warmth in Jon's room we depended on one of those portable electric heaters. You know the ones with the glowing red bars behind the cage -- the ones that you can't feel until you're frying within twelve inches of their red-hot zone? Well, it occurred to Jon that since his butt thunder had most likely already ruptured the ozone layer, there was no harm in having a little fun with the heater.
"Dude," he asked me. "You think I can light my fart on fire?"
"Hold on," I said, "I got one. Let me go first."
I crawled over and squatted in front of the heater, baring my hairy ass inches from its steel grille. Pwwwp! My anus opened and closed shop in less than a second.
"Aww, I got nothin'," I told Jon. "You try."
Jon took my position in front of the heater. "Hey dude, that feels kinda nice, actually," he said, grinning as his cheeks toasted in the electric orange. "Oh, oh... I got one comin'--here we go--uuh-uhhh-uuuuunnnnnhhh!"
Man, I wish I had on tape what happened next. The floodgates of Jon's anus broke open fast and wide, spewing a nasty rectal geyser of Olestra, rum, and whatever junk he had eaten for dinner that night (four Polish sausages, I later learned) all over the carpet, the heater, and unfortunately, my foot. You know those boiling volcanic mudslides that can blanket a town faster than you can say "Oh shit!"? Yeah. Like that. But worse. I don't think any phrase in the English lexicon is anywhere near vivid enough to capture the horror that is another person's hot, fresh bowel-mustard splooshing onto you without warning.
With a cry that would have scared a banshee, I recoiled and dove for the heater's power cord. I knew my chances of euthanization rose with every second Jon's sausage-riddled methane mud continued to bake on the heater's glowing coils. Laughing as only the one doing the shitting could, Jon rose and ran into his bathroom to deposit the rest and clean off, while I shed my shoes and jeans and tossed them in after him with disgust. The sick, twisted, drunk bastard. Even to this day, I have my doubts as to the legitimacy of the heater "accident."
I have to admit, it came as some consolation to watch him spend the next two hours carefully taking apart and cleaning the heater -- not to mention deep-scrubbing the yellow-brown out of the carpet -- while I sat there in my boxers playing Super Mario World.
-- Obi-Dung Kenobi
