When I was a sophomore in college I finally got to take my secondhand Volvo to school with me. So my father purchased for himself a gleaming silver Volkswagen Golf -- six cylinders, sport suspension, standard transmission. He got four speeding tickets in his first month of ownership. He lavished attention on the German thoroughbred -- washing, waxing and covering the interior with great coats of ArmorAll.

This story concerns Usona, a lady in her 90's and a close friend of the family. Usona, who lived alone, depended on my father for many things, including weekly grocery runs and trips to the dentist and doctor. Among the constant items on her grocery list were cream cheese, Miller Highlife, heavy cream (which she drank straight), and coffee. Suffice it to say that Usona's bowels moved with dependable -- if noisy -- regularity.

One day my dad picked up Usona for the short run to the dentist's office. After having been helped into the front passenger seat, she fumbled her way into the seatbelt. Once my dad got in the car, she proceeded to tell him that she had "Just polished off a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies" and "won't that sassy old dentist be mad." Usona was witty, charming, and ladylike, and she broke wind as if a walrus carcass was decomposing in her elderly colon for the entire ride to the dentist's -- which lasted quite some time.

After dropping Usona off and going for a 60 mph ride around the block to clear the stench, my father returned to the dentist's parking lot and read the paper. After a while, the hygienist came out and, in quiet tones, explained to my father that Usona's elderly colon had taken revenge on the dentist's chair in the form of "several quarts of stinking yellow muck."

Usona came out a few minutes later with a large towel wrapped around her waist -- the damage her pants had been terminal. Going home, she chatted merrily with my dad, who grew alarmed as she began to once again fart up a storm. Revving the engine and silently praying that his latter day panzer would pull him through, my father began blowing stoplights as best he could, doing well above the speed limit. Usona continued a merry conversation while her farts grew in frequency and regularity.

Suddenly, dead silence. "Oh dear," went the old lady in a sad little voice. Almost immediately my father's nose was assaulted by a terrible, evil, vile odor; he looked over and, to his horror, saw Usona sitting in a puddle of liquid deuce, much of which was dripping out of her hand-tooled leather bucket seat and onto the floor of the car.

To his credit, my dad continued to take care of Usona, managing to laugh off the $120 dollar steam cleaning bill; but he did start taking our old Volvo with the fabric seats when it was time to play chauffer.

-- Nate Curtis