EggsOverEggs

Half Indian Land Mine (A.K.A. The Three P’s)

All right so the whole post is probably not going to be focused solely on farting at work (although it probably could be), but I feel as if I need to make some statements on this topic that have been on my mind for a while.  Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about workplace etiquette and what being polite and curteous to co-workers entails.  Some of the major n0-nos include, but are certainly not limited to; sexual harassment, inappropriate attire, excessive foul language or verbal abuse of any kind, and of course certain bodily emissions which are best done in the privacy of a bathroom stall or in bed while holding the covers over your girlfriend’s head. This leads me to my major point.  Farting is a part of life.  We all do it.  If God didn’t want us to fart he wouldn’t have made gas a by-product of digestion.  I understand that it smells bad and I agree whole-heartedly that farting in any public place is rude and wildly inappropriate.  With the exception of strip clubs and subways, both of which smell oddly like farts to begin with.  

Sometimes, however, the body, or more accurately your large intestine, reaches a point of critical mass under which one of two things need to happen. 1You fart. 2Your large intestine catches on fire and you burn to death from the inside out.  You see, fartology is the study of pressure..and time.  Over a long enough period of time even the toughest colon can be reduced to a quivering  balloon of gas and excrement.  My point being that sometimes farting at work is 100% necessary.  Take my job for example.  I need to call someone who is trained to work the swithboard if I ever need to get up from my desk and walk somewhere else in the office.  If I did this everytime I needed to fart, I would need to make approximately 5 to 600 calls a day to have someone cover for me.  This is inconvient for all parties involved including myself so I have chosen to accept the fact that I simply must sit at my desk and fart. 

There is  a science to this which I have not even come close to perfecting.  My desk is in the lobby which sort of segregates me from the rest of the office.  This makes it easier to get away with farting, belching, shooting rubber bands at insects and sniffing magic markers, but for some reason sound travels very well in the office.  Sometimes I’ll be sitting at my desk and everything will be completely silent and I’ll just figure I can’t hear anything going on in the office and then I’ll hear someone sitting 30 feet away from me drop a pencil or clear their throat and I’ll realize that everyone can hear everything. 

(A note to the reader: I’m going to go into some serious detail on this now so if you are reading this post and are only semi interested in what I’m saying, or if you find no humor or relevance to this topic whatsoever, I suggest you stop reading and never return to this site…ever.)

My preferred method for getting a fart out unnoticed is the one-cheek-sneak.  For those who don’t know, it’s very simple.  I just sit in my chair and raise one side of my ass.  I then gently push the fart out which is an art form in and of itself.  I say this because there are varying levels of intesity with which one can expell gas.  I find the best way to make a fart silent is to let it build to about a medium pressure in the colon and then apply a gentle push starting with the upper abdominal muscles and working your way down.  Try to sort of hold the fart back while pushing if that makes any sense.  It’s sort of a finesse thing that’s more easily practiced than explained.  Remember not to hold back or push too hard at any given point because this increases the risk for a potentially loud, high-pitched, “squeaker”.  A fart which is difficult to mask with another sound and virtually impossible to explain in any professional environment.  The one cheek sneak is a very basic method for the silent fart which can be done with great efficiency after a few practice runs.  I would suggest trying this several times in the privacy of your own home before bringing it to the office.

Another “seated position” method is a more subtle version of the one cheek sneak I like to call the “half-indian land mine”.  In this situation one of your legs is folded under the opposite thigh and rests atop your chair sort of like you are sitting half “indian style”.  This position naturally raises one of your ass cheeks slightly higher than the other taking pressure off your ass and allowing the fart to escape.  Let the fart build to a medium/high pressure.  This is where it gets slightly complicated.  Find a way to position your torso so the gas feels like it will escape in one uninterrupted stream.  I find that leaning back moderately to significantly is the best position.  Then grip both arms of your chair tightly and sort of lift yourself off the chair to relieve the rest of your body weight from your ass.  This should ensure a natural flow of gas from your asshole.  DO NOT PUSH the fart out in this position.  Because you are already tensing a lot of muscles in your arms and torso to lift your ass off the seat, you are almost guaranteed to push too hard.  This method is all about the three P’s: preparation, pressure, and proper form.  If at any point you feel the gas will not escape naturally, ABORT THE POSITION and try the one cheek sneak.  Upon proper emittance of the fart, relax your arms and kind of plop back down on the seat.  This is where the “land mine” part comes in.  When you plop down on the seat, some of the gas will naturally be forced into the fibers of seat cushion and, if done with enough force, some of the smell may even become embedded deep, deep in the foam.  The next time someone sits in the chair, the smell will explode from the cushion not unlike a land mine.

Ever more challenging are the standing postition farts.  For some reason you just cannot get as much control over the flow, volume, or timing of these farts.  However I have found one of the major benefits of standing and farting is that everything seems to move along a bit more quickly and naturally.  Under normal circumstances, I would never recommend standing up to fart at work.  It would just look ridiculous.  This is because the “three P’s” rule cannot be feasibly applied to farts while in the standing position.  Sure, the first two, Positioning and Pressure, can be achieved quite naturally while standing.  Sometimes standing even makes the proper pressure build easier, but the third P, Proper Form, cannot be achieved without calling unwanted attention to yourself.  Think about it.  What do you look like when you fart while standing?  Hand on hip? Back arched? Knees Bent?  Furrowed brow? Sweating?  Maybe even a wince?  It’s virtually impossible to fart without a slighty questionable look on your face.  Don’t believe me?  Next time you’re home and you have to fart, do it in front of a mirror.  You’ll notice that you have a worried, somewhat quizzical look on your face.  Now when you sit down and fart and this look comes across your face you can just stare at papers or your computer screen and pass it off as if you are reading a confusing email.  When you’re standing, everyone knows you’re just fuckin farting. 

I can think of only three situations in which a standing office fart should be executed.  The first situation is one of extreme emergency.  Imagine you’ve just finished your third McDonalds breakfast burrito and washed it all down with a nice large Blueberry Nut Crinkle Coffee with extra cream and12 sugars.  You start to get that feeling way down in the depths of your bowels.  Maybe you try to eake out a half indian at your desk only to get the dreaded needle point.  That sharp pang you get right at the ring of your asshole when you try to get away with a fart but you know theres something blocking it.  So you jump up and start doing that awkward looking penguin walk to the bathroom trying your best to look and act natural but somehow you know everyone who sees you knows your on a collision course for the handicapped toilet.  Everyone, that is, except for your boss who corners you in front of the bathroom door and for some reason has waited until this very moment to launch into an in depth conversation on the positioning of the rug that everyone is supposed to dry their feet on in front of the entrance.  A bead of sweat forms between your eyebrows and you stand there nodding, wondering if he notices as the sweat becomes too heavy to stay rooted on your brow and trickles downward between your eye and nose like a single tear.  A shit-tear if you will.  The conversation continues, but a miracle has occurred.  A slight rumble and the needle point has shifted, making way for the fart.  You know this one won’t wait for the conversation to end but how do you get it out without your boss hearing?

A method I’ve stumbled upon which I would say works effectively approximately ninety percent of the time is one I call the “Gassy Pigeon”.  When in the standing position simply point your toes inward toward each other so you are standing “pigeon toed”.  The more inward you can point your feet the better.  What I’ve found is that standing like this somehow allows a fart to flow more freely from the ass.  It’s an intangible which I doubt will ever be proven in a lab but I’ve found it helpful nonetheless.  Discretion is clearly the key factor here so don’t make it too obvious you’re trying to stand pigeon toed or, you know, people will just think you’re an idiot.  Like the Half Indian, do not try to push this one out.  The proper Pigeon Toe position should enable the fart to just coast right on out.  Of course you’re not out of the woods yet since those breakfast burritos smell even worse on the way out.  You have to get yourself and your boss out of the danger zone.  Try to think up some ways to end a lengthy yet pointless conversation.  Something that I love doing is interrupting the unwanted talker by just saying “cool” and then kind of  half patting half rubbing their shoulder while making solid eye contact.  This should shut them up for enought time for you to walk away.  Or sneeze in your boss’ face.  Hard.  Make no attempt to cover you mouth.  This is unsanitary, but he or she will be blinded by saliva and mucous long enough for you to make your escape to the bathroom.

The next instance in which a standing fart is acceptable is of course the Crop Dust.  Not only is this an acceptable standing-fart position, it’s actually encouraged.  For those of you who don’t know, Crop Dusting is the timeless art of farting while walking.  But so much more than that, it’s a way to obtrusively invade the space and senses of your friends and co-workers.  Say you’re heading to the copier.  It’s a few rows down and you’ve got some gas left over from last night’s trip to Taco Bell.  There’s really no challenge to this.  It’s just walk and fart. Fart and walk.  Maybe do some whistling or make some pretend airplane noises.  A quick note: The up and down impact of walking while farting may create rapid expulsion of gas from the anus and cause loud and unwanted trumpeting.  A slight clenching of the ass cheeks while walking should help prevent this from happening. 

The final instance of acceptable standing position farting is simply called “The Fire Alarm”  If you’re lucky enough to have the fire alarm go off in your office, you can fart as loudly and frequently and with as much body language you desire for the duration of the fire alarm.  Those fuckers are so loud everyone in the office will be deaf by the time they’re turned off.

I hope you use this guide to its fullest potential.  These are just a few techniques which have helped me tremendously in my mindless journey through the office politik.  Although farting in the office is and probably always will be unacceptable, it is important to remember that it can still be done with some discretion and a bit of practice.  And if you ever get called out on a fart just deny it till you’re blue in the face.