humans are funny

Category: farts

  • I’m moving to Malawi!

    Maybe.

    If you remember my most recent Funny Human, The Crowd Farter, you’ll know that I don’t enjoy when people bust one loose in the middle of a sweaty bus or elevator or fireworks display. I can’t deny that I am guilty, but I don’t have to because creepy little Crowd Farters remain anonymous.
    Apparently, the higher-ups in Malawi share my sensitive nose’s sentiment. They’re currently debating a law on banning, as they call it, “breaking wind in public.” The best part of the article is its accompanying picture. Looks like a stinky one.

    THE JUSTICE MINISTER OF MALAWI said, “Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting.”
    Thanks, Justice Minister.
    I seriously love that this is being debated in a government somewhere. If I would have known this was on the bill, I might have flown in. I’m interested in learning more about the system they’ll use to detect the perpetrator.
    Read the entire article [HERE}.

  • Funny Human of the Week: The Crowd Farter


    Society says you’re really immature if you talk about farts. And comedy says you’re lazy if you talk about farts. I’ve been torn for the last few days because the infamous Crowd Farter has brought to my attention an intense desire to talk about farts. So, let’s all join hands and wear turtlenecks and be mature for a minute. Let’s forget that farts come from our butts and sometimes sound like sirens, and let’s just concentrate on the Crowd Farter himself.

    I felt a call to action when I went to Disneyland on New Year’s Eve. My man friend and I took a delightful jaunt to the happiest place on Earth for an afternoon of casual roller coaster riding and a few hugs from Mickey and friends. We weren’t aware that New Year’s Eve is the busiest day of the entire year.

    Oh.

    When you arrive, they hand you a little paper that explains all the good things about the neighboring park, pretty much begging you to please go there instead. But did we? Nope. As soon as we handed our tickets to the grimacing Disney attendant, we knew we should have heeded the advice of the little paper. It was like walking through peanut butter. People and more people everywhere. And this special eve is one of those occasions that calls the fanatics out. Not one but many grown men dressed as Jack Sparrow pranced as much as grown men dressed as Jack Sparrow* can prance. Hidden among the men with eyeliner, the families wearing Mickey ears and the college kids dressed as princesses lurked several Crowd Farters.

    Crowd Farters are aware of the noise level of crowds. They know there’s movement in a group so they feel safe, finding no need to walk away briskly or defensively joke about smelling it and dealing it. They wouldn’t do this at a business meeting or on a date. But as soon as big numbers ensure their anonymity, they delight in ruining firework displays, church, concerts, the theater, subway rides, elevators, mall food courts, outdoor festivals, ride lines at Disneyland, and worst of all: airplanes. They’re farting professionals.

    And they need to be stopped.

    But can they be? There’s no proof in the pudding, my friends. And I don’t understand that phrase because is there ever proof in pudding? I’m not sure there’s ever even fingerprints on pudding. I’ve contemplated this, and I’m thinking anyone would be hard-pressed to brush for prints on either bread pudding or chocolate pudding. And many crowds don’t even have pudding in them. Therefore, Crowd Farters cannot be identified. We all like to guess the culprit just by the expressions of our fellow crowd members, but there’s never any pudding. You know who you are, Crowd farter. Yes, you do. And I beg you to please… hold off. Do it for humanity. Do it for the pudding.

    I inhaled at least thirty farts on New Year’s Eve, appropriately encapsulating the stinky year that was 2010. It wasn’t the Happiest Place on Earth for me that day. Because it was filled with Crowd Farters but also because I paid $15 for two pretzels and because Mickey was very rude when I poked him with needles.

    You might say that I know so much about the psyche of the Crowd Farter because I’ve been one myself. And to that, my friends, I must guffaw. My farts are like that of this video. In fact, there are so many butterflies flittering around my apartment, I’m actually scared to sleep.

    *Jack Sparrow is from some movie called Pirates of the Carribean. I never saw it, but I guess Johnny Depp wears eyeliner and long black dreads in it. Based on the costumed men at Disneyland, I will never see it.

    *If you’re from a literary journal, hello. No, I did not just spend six hours writing about farts. What gave you that idea? Here, look! A very mature Funny Human: The Ghayter

    *Yes, I do think there is a connection between Crowd Farters and Ed Hardy shirts.

  • I saw Bush in Tokyo!

    I was once in an airport bathroom on the way to Brasil when I heard an abnormally raucous fart emit from the stall to my left. My instinct immediately led me to lower my hovering squat in order to see what type of shoes belonged to the person or animal who created such a wonker. The dainty feet of the noisemaker were capped in soft ecru pantyhose and an equally delicate leather shoe. An old lady. Figures, I thought and went on with my usual pre-flight purchasing of nuts and water. I forgot about the incident.

    But low and behold, I saw the same dainty feet and ecru hose not an hour later, seated across the aisle from me on my 8-hr flight. They were connected to a short women in her sixties who wore a matching ecru pantsuit and bright red lipstick. Though I slept, ate, diverted my attention with books and trips to the loo, I could not stop seeing those shoes in my peripheral and remarking to myself about the vociferous ass of the lady beside me.

    I don’t know if the Japanese heard about people like me, who actually take the time to glance at a farter’s shoes. Or if they just don’t want to admit their bodies are even capable of making any such noises. But they have gone to great lengths to install a noise machine in every bathroom stall of Tokyo that creates a bubbling brook or fake flushing sound as soon as a body passes the sensor on the way to the seat. It is just one of the ways the Japanese take care to be clean, polite, and discreet.

    The toilets also have warmed seats and hi-tech bidet capabilities. And this isn’t just in fancy shmancy places. The bubbling brook played in the toilet of the subway, which was also impeccably clean. Like the bathrooms, the streets, the parks, the people are all perfectly groomed and litter free. They have even devised a tray system that ensures any cashier does not have to touch a tourist’s dirty hand when giving him change. Speaking of dirty hands, they offer nice-smelling towels to wash with before every meal no matter what sort of restaurant you may find yourself in.

    And… they wear dust masks. Some say it’s allergies. Others claim they have a cold and want to protect others. I think it’s just plain neurosis. Whatever the reason, I’d say at least 30 percent of the people wear dust masks. All the time! Inside. I saw a group of school children taking a picture on a fieldtrip. Half had masks covering all but their eyes. When they look back at pictures from childhood, they’ll never get to see what they looked like!

    Even so, I wanted to get a taste of this cleanliness, so I went to a traditional onsen. It’s a public bath very popular among the Japanese. I went on a Sunday night along with half of Tokyo. People were there on dates; families were there together; groups of girls were there to gossip. All naked. In the co-ed areas, you must wear a traditional Japanese robe and, of course, take off any footwear. But afterward, it’s all nudity all the time. It’s very intimate yet it’s shared with a hundred women in a bunch of pools.

    Wrapped in my fancy robe, I headed through the maze of restaurants, carnival games, and shops to the pre-bath area where I was given a towel and sent to a seated shower room where I had to get clean before getting clean. Then I hopped from pool to pool, each with a different purpose. The main pool was a tea color and supposedly piped in from a sulfurous hot spring 1400 meters underground. Then there were bubbly pools, cold pools, open-air pools, pools in oak barrels, and calm square pools. Of course I tried them all.

    Then, after pooling myself out, I headed to this outdoor path where men and women can walk together and massage their feet as they go. It was about a half kilometer of knee-deep warm water full of little pebbles that were supposed to massage but felt more like daggers ripping through my skin. When I got to the end, I found a most ironic gathering. Back in October I posted about these funny humans who were letting fish eat the dead skin cells off their feet. Well now I’d come face to face with them, and for just 1500 yen, I could even be one. I jumped right in.

    I guess I had an exorbitant amount of dead skin on my calves and feet because the fish instantly abandoned all the other dangling feet and attacked mine. It took all my strength to keep my dogs in the pool throughout all the tickling. Feet are ticklish anyway, but hundreds of little gray fishers giving fish blow jobs to my toes was pretty much unbearable. But I lasted the entire 15 minutes, and I haven’t stopped marveling at how smooth my feet are. I am honestly thinking about getting a tank of feet-sucking fish when I get back. Who knew? Oh yeah, the Japanese.

    This is how I fold a plastic bag vs. how the Japanese fold a plastic bag.


    A very clean version of me after my 3-hr bath.