Sunday, May 30, 2010

'scuse me: wet gas!

One of the funniest things I think I've ever heard a child say is, "Scuse me, wet gas" as he unselfconsciously tooted. His parents had taught him his manners, of course, and everyone knows it's not quite okay to let loose in public.

But what can you do? Sometimes farts happen.

So you excuse yourself.

But yet I can't help thinking that it's not quite enough, is it? A fart is such a huge social transgression that it needs--shall we say--a certain amount of noise to atone for the offense. So yes, you must excuse yourself. But you must also have the grace to look inordinately ashamed and humiliated by the grand faux pax that you, well-intentioned civilian though you may be, have just committed.

After all, you don't get off the hook for killing someone just because you didn't mean to, do you?

Accountability matters.

And to help memorialize the event, of course, it is the prime duty of each witnessing family member to remember the incident and recite it, with increasingly colorful detail, at every succeeding family occasion.

This is what family traditions are made of.

It's a bonding thing.

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