Awkward Moments
May 11, 2023
When you are lactose intolerant, it is necessary to rate the worthiness of certain foods. Is the delight in the mouth worth the inevitable outcome elsewhere? For me, milk is entirely unworthy unless it is loaded with Nestle’s Quik, or better yet, Swiss Miss, or in the form of a milkshake. Sherbet is a good substitute for ice cream, but then again, a really good, rich ice cream is usually worth the pain. Then there is Brie, or lasagna. But will that trip to Fartopia be worth it?
When my children were young, most meals were enjoyed in a breakfast nook which perfectly fit a table flanked by two halves of a long church pew. Barely a meal went by that my oldest daughter didn’t drill her basso profundo into the reverberating length of the solid pine seat. We teased her about her mealtime levitations and begged her to control her emissions lest she should embarrass herself later when she started dating.
In my teenage dating days, I had a boyfriend who commented on my cute little walk. The truth was that my mother had been adamant that I enjoy at least 3 tall glasses of milk every day, and I had to develop the tightest cheeks on two coasts. I never knew that most people did not spend their lives in ceaseless abdominal agony. It wasn’t until I reached college and read an article in Reader’s Digest that I learned what my problem was. And since Mother was not there to force me to drink milk (which I never did like, anyway), I could successfully avoid the problem, usually.
My daughter, however, didn’t seem to think it was a problem, and when she met the love of her life in high school, he was no help at all. To this day, they share a perverse humor about such things.
Not that this ever happened to me, but I know of a certain young coed who was self-consciously endeavoring to create an enticing moment, standing unclothed and alone for the first time with her paramour. Having reticently shared a quart of skunky beer with him, she found herself battling both stomach pains and rapid-fire and persistent hiccups.
“I know how to cure hiccups!” offered her equally young love. “Hold your breath and put your head between your knees!”
Can you imagine what happened while holding the position and the hiccup erupted – in stereo? Her only response was a quick little jump, an “Oooops!” and a fervent prayer that he hadn’t noticed.
Right….
And then, there was the version of a more mature woman on a camping trip, sharing a pup tent with her new love. As she awakened to the morning bird songs, gave a little stretch and shifted position, there bubbled an unplanned gastric melody. She peaked over to see an eye, not unlike that of Moby Dick (in the movie), staring at her in silence. For years afterward there were jokes about flaring tent flaps.
A man, on the other hand, has no problem deflecting. I was in a large retail store with my daughter and son-in-law one fine afternoon, when he disappeared into the next aisle without us. He was making a rapid retreat from there as we rounded the stacks to catch up with him.
“Noooooo! You don’t want to go down that aisle!” he warned.
Too late, we had already caught his drift, and were forced to make a quick retreat before we met a gagging stranger giving us the evil eye.
Fortunately, there were no candles burning, on a different occasion, when my (late) husband suddenly fumigated the TV room. Of, course, he immediately blamed the 8-pound Siamese cat as she leapt in terror from his lap. (All right, it happened more than once – okay – many times, and sometimes it was the dog who got blamed.)
“Are you kidding?!” I challenged. “If that cat had done that, she’d be turned inside out and ricocheting off the walls like a fully inflated balloon shooting across the room!”
I will close with these two pieces of wisdom from my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Murphy, who advised, “If you fart in church, turn around and stare at the person behind you!” Then he added, “Confucius say, he who fart in church sit in his own pew.”