June 8, 2012

• When You Fart In An Elevator

     Like Squirrels In A Cage   

   

      I ran the last two blocks to get back to my company’s building. I stayed at “Taco Pete’s” for one more of his famous Bean Fiesta Burrito’s and now I was late getting back to the office and my rhinoceros boss, Miss Clumsnizzer who would most likely be checking security tapes later looking for tardy retards. I made it to the first floor elevator just in time and took my place inside with eight others. We all stood silent like a pack of McDonald’s fries. There were two giggling teen girls, but their snickers were loss under the deluge of 1980’s music coming from the elevator speaker. The doors slowly slid shut leaving everyone to their own thoughts……that’s when I farted.

      I stood out like the last grape in a fruit salad. I know people wanted to turn and gawk at me, but the Medusa Syndrome was in control. Some just felt sorry for me, while others resented my vaporous existence. The run back from Taco Pete’s and the anticipation of encountering the rutting Miss Clumsnizzer was more than my intestinal relief sphincter could manage. It was a low octave emission, reminiscent of old tramp steamers caught in thick fog at sea, bellowing a warning to the other ships. I was flabbergasted and even the piped in music stopped playing.

      Second floor….half the elevator emptied like a high school fire drill. As the door closed once again, I could hear quietly muttered prayers and the shuffling of feet, as survivors made their way to neutral corners of the lift.  In moments of stress, several things happen. The sweat glands kick into overdrive and your breathing increases. The heart beats a few extra choruses and a salvo of stomach acid causes the stomach to churn, resulting in bowel strangulation and the purging of more gas….which I did. “Must be a dead squirrel in the overhead,” commented an old guy with watery eyes. I stare down and bite my lip.

      Third floor….The door swooshes open and two people, including the squirrel expert, quickly exit while two more get on and before they realize their mistake, the door slides shut making a vacuum sealing sound, much like the steel door of a prison’s gas chamber. One of the giggling teenage girls is now openly weeping.

      Forth floor….The doors mercifully open on the final floor of the trip, which seemed like a Biblical exodus.  Several are muttering under their breath as they stagger out while some are surveying the area for a public restroom. Waiting to take the elevator down is a middle age man helping his elder mother with her walker. They enter and turn to face the sliding doors as they are sealed in. I can hear the old women’s frail voice as they plunge downward, “Hon, is that a dead squirrel I smell?”

  
  

  • 12:31 pm
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