All the ingredients were there for a nice evening: the dogs were in bed and I was sitting on the couch listening to an audio cassette (cassettes... remember them?) and critiquing my farts. "Strong stench -- pewwww!" "Decent staying power. Not very loud, though; rather short." "This one gets a seven -- but only because of the sheer stench of it." The olfactory display was like the Fourth of July for my nose.
After a quick but intense barrage of farts (the olfactory equivalent of a mat of firecrackers), I noticed that my asshole kind of made a little "pucker" -- like one's asshole might after one shoots out some liquefied shit when taking a diarrhea. I thought the phenomenon rather odd, and was musing at how unusual such a feeling was to my asshole, as I shifted my position on the couch; and then the world stopped.
"Uh-ohh!!!" I felt the slightest sensation of something wet in the vicinity of the crack of my ass. Surely this could not be what I was starting to fear. In my entire life I had only really shat my pants once, when I was three. (Unfortunately, this is my most vivid memory from that age.) And I had only sharted myself once, years ago, when I was sick in bed -- and surely this could not be an incidence of sharting, as when I really did shart myself, I realized that I was sharting myself while my sphincter was still sphinctering, rather than discovering the suprising presence of wetness ex post facto.
No, this was just paranoia. Nothing to worry about. To prove it, I hoisted my keister a few inches off the couch cushion and swiped the ends of my fingers across the seat of my pants, right in the vicinity of the imaginary wetness. And then, putting my fingers to my nose, I inhaled -- and breathed a sigh of relief, because my fingers most assuredly did not smell like those of a three-year-old with an itchy ass, which is how they surely would have had any funk been residing in my boxers.
Ahh... the emergency is over. Nothing to worry about. I blew another fart: another seven. No... wait. This one could be an eight -- what a stench! And it was longer and louder than the previous one -- it had to earn a higher score! I sampled my fingers again, just to reassure myself... no. They don't smell at all like doodie. But wait... they do kinda smell like my farts -- ahh, maybe it's just from the spices in the garbanzo beans having rubbed off on them. Yes, that makes perfect sense: the garbanzos were causing me to fart like a mad bomber, and my fingers smelled similar to the farts because I had been using them to eat the crunchy baked garbanzo beans. Nothing to worry about here. The General can distinguish between flatulence and defecation a mile away!
I leaned over slightly to adjust the controls on my portable cassette player. Uh-oh -- there's that little feeling of wetness again. And a sinking feeling in my stomach.
OK. This was getting ridiculous. I was feeling like I did have to drop the Cosby Kids off at the pool anyway, so I may as well head to the porcelain shrine where I can check my shorts in the process, just to reassure myself that all is well.
I drop trou as I get ready to make my delivery of sausage to the Italian deli. And I just glance at my boxers, almost casually. Hah, there's nothi -- uhhhh. What's that?
No!
That's it. It's all over. I have been demoted to the ranks of the mere mortal. There it is, right in the middle of my shorts: a 3D skidmark. I have officially sharted myself, without even realizing it. And it was so subtle. I was sitting in my own filth for who-knows-how-long, to the point where the specimen of feces living in my shorts had cooled like week-old lava. Surely the next step in this scenario of degeneration will be Depends!
I took a diarrhea (not really the watery kind -- more like soft-serve ice cream. Call it Tom Carvel meets Thomas Crapper), cleaned my gluteus maximus thoroughly (even though the damage miraculously seemed limited to my shorts), and changed. I guess, technically, I've crapped my pants as an adult now. Now I know how the other half lives.
The very worst part of this incident: for the rest of the night, I kept feeling the wonderful urge to fart -- a pleasure which has become all too rare in recent years -- but, as a result of having sharted myself and having stained a practically new pair of boxers (of course something like this would never happen if one were wearing old shorts), I, General Colon Pow -- the guy who LIVES to fart -- had become PARANOID! I was afraid to fart! Me -- the guy who wouldn't hold 'em in if he had an audience with the Pope -- was holding them in!
The lyrics to Kenny Rogers' The Gambler started playing in my mind: "You gotta know when to hold 'em / know when to fold 'em / know when to walk away ... when the dealing's done." Ah, if only it were that easy. My confidence in blasting out no-holds-barred farts will never be the same. From this day forward I shall always have doubts, like the wavering nine year-old, standing by the cupboard where the peanut-butter is kept, knife in hand and bread on the plate, pausing to ponder the eternal question: "Smooth? Or chunky style?"