Friday, August 14, 2009

Flatulence Etiquette by Flat-D

Flat-D found this foreign article about flatulence etiquette. As you know we are for good etiquette by promoting our Flatulence Deodorizer product. If everyone would wear our product then we would have a better world to live in. We would not have problems with sitting next to people on an airplane, in church, in meetings, or walking into the bosses office.

ARTICLE
The other week, I came out of the newsroom to find my colleague leaping out of the lift in a hell of a hurry.
This in itself does not seem unusual except that he had departed just moments before me, with the intention of going home.
He turned to me and said "I’m waiting for the next lift. Someone has farted in that one and I don’t want to be blamed for it by the person waiting at the bottom."
Conceding he had a fair point, I waited for the next lift too.
Now, I’m no Miss Manners, but surely etiquette would suggest suspension of any farting in the lift, given its confined space and lack of ventilation. Unless the lift is incredibly slow, surely you can wait a few floors?
There’s certainly etiquette around flatulence and running. In every group I’ve ever run with, the situation seems to be: just ignore it. The person who farted never apologises and everyone else pretends to have gone momentarily deaf.
I guess it’s based on the knowledge that we’re all at risk of it happening . Running seems to put pressure on the digestive system which appears to, er, encourage movement.
In the grand scheme of things, there are many things worse than runner’s trots. However, in terms of an event or training, it’s pretty much as bad as it gets. This nasty affliction, which is exactly what the name suggests, is the very reason one should never, ever eat anything new the day of, or even the day before, a race.
I know of one runner who only got as far as the first toilet in a half marathon because of a crab curry the night before.
I had an unfortunate experience in my early days of events, before I was experienced enough to know better, involving a nutrition bar and club triathlon. That goes down in my memory as worst race ever.
Most people who have been doing crazy recreational activities long enough seem to have horror stories. Which become amusing once enough time has passed to get some perspective. Before that, not so much.
Purely in the interests of being on the safe side, I think I know the location of every public toilet in the Wellington region.

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