A few years ago, my diminutive Japanese wife and I were spending the night in a campground on the North Carolina side of the Great Smokies. There was a bear alert in the area, so we decided to sleep in the bed of our pick-up, which was covered by a camper top. We left the pleasant aroma of our cedar twig campfire and retired for the night.
As soon as we were settled cozily, I felt a very urgent need to fart. I had promised my wife that, as the quarters were so close, I would hold my farts in until the morrow. The pending fart felt like one of those that would not be denied, and that a "hold in" would be difficult, if not impossible; so I asked her if just one fart to ease my distended abdomen would be permissible. I pleaded my case like Clarence Darrow, like Johnny Cochran, drawing an ugly picture of my mauled body being buried in a closed casket just because she made me leave a secure location to fart among a frolicking pack of vicious bears.
Hesitantly, she demurred to my request.
I am a man of my word, so there was only one fart -- but it was of an exceptionally long duration. It was hot enough to burn off what few hairs my anus possessed as cleanly as any depilatory cream could have done. My wife was not unduly upset, since there had been practically no sound -- just a soft gentle whooshing. Then our nostrils were assailed by the aroma. And there was nothing soft and gentle about it.
The stench was overpowering. I had Dutch-ovened not only my wife and the dog, but myself as well. No -- this was more than a Dutch oven. This was a pressure cooker!
Farts are always funny, so even my wife was laughing, but her laughter was somewhat muffled by the fact that both her hands were covering her nose and mouth. Our dog was taciturn through the ordeal as he lay with his muzzle between his paws, probably in a vain attempt to escape the smell.
My farts are usually stinky, but this one was among the top efforts of my entire life. On a scale of one to ten, this was an easy twelve or higher. The air was as thick as a pudding -- you could have carved out a chunk, gift-wrapped it, and shipped it to someone. They would probably have been less than appreciative when they opened it, but it could have been done.
What could have brought about this gaseous wonder?!? Was it the potato salad that had gone too long un-refrigerated? Was it the baked beans that I had purchased in a small mountain store, where most of the dusty cans were probably out of date? Perhaps the bottle of sticky-sweet scuppernong wine I had purchased at a hillbilly winery back in Tennessee?
Campers adjacent to us were mumbling about our gleeful cackling, which was interspersed with gags, so we had to stop so as not to incur their wrath. I could imagine being tied securely, doused with the juice from a can of sardines, placed somewhere in the surrounding woods, and left for the bears. I opened the tailgate and let the fart fumes mingle with the chilly, clean mountain air.
Bears have extremely keen senses of smell, so I feel confident that the campsite was made safer by my fart. After one sniff, all the bears within a five-mile radius, I am sure, headed in the opposite direction.
