rerun

drum roll...ok, ready?


what i'll tell you now is a tried and true story that deserves to be told for the masses. if you've alread heard me relate this story, you won't hurt my feelings by not reading the rest of this post.

picture it-- washington, dc, october 2000. i'm sitting in an interminable staff meeting at my very first real job (ok, it was an internship, but it was real to me...) thinking that this is where the action is. i'm making policy. or i'm helping people make policy by sending their faxes and cutting their bagels. whatever. it's staff meeting, and i'm answering phones, taking notes, participating in conversation, blah blah blah. this is where i should give you some background.

when i worked in dc as a lowly copy rat with a very pretentious title at a very small non-profit, i learned that manners can get you anywhere in life. lack of manners can, apparently, make you the executive director of a non-profit who rubs elbows with some of dc's a-listers. i also learned that if you are the underling of said executive director, it's best to sit near the door and always make sure you don't get trapped away from the door in a room with the executive director after lunch. now, back to the story...

our conference room was dingy. dingy like a third rate brothel in matamoros, but with less wall-paper and a wheezing copy machine. and our conference table was one of the 6 foot jobs with a peeling top, wonky legs, and the plastic binding holding the thing together was poking out in places, so you had to be careful not to rub against it. there were six of us in the room that fateful day. i was seated at the foot of the table, furthest from the door. to quote my friend cory will, irony, you are a bastard.

i'm at the foot, executive director was at my left hand, project manager was to my right. my buddy hopie was at the top right of the table, office manager was at the head, assistant director was to the left of her, next to executive director. and we're talking about inane mailings, where to put the extra large stamps that executive director loves so much ("place large stamps here" said the note on top of ALL our return envelopes, which caused so much confusion in the over 80 set, who of course called me with all sorts of questions and issues about that little ditty...), how we fold things, who's sending money, how can we get more money, when are we having a board meeting, blah blah blah. and then IT happened.

executive director had already struck me as not-so-suave in the short two months i had been in his employ. it had also come to my attention that executive director had a bad back, for which he carried a tiny, horribly crud-encrusted therma-rest type pillow. at one time, i think the cursed thing was a happy, sunshine yellow. by the time i became aquainted with it, the poor thing was ratty around the edges, and was the color of a pretty ripe sinus infection. eww, gross. that freaking pillow was with executive director ALL the time. like linus and his blankie. silly me, i thought executive director was simply leaning over to adjust his pillow. no, no, that would be the normal thing to do, and i was working for King Crazy in Crazyville, and King Crazy had had friend chicken from down the street for lunch that day. i know because i had to pick it up for him. apparently, sometimes the chicken didn't agree with him, and i found out the hard way.

executive director leaned forward, and to the side, in what appeared to be a minor adjusting motion, common to anyone who's been sitting for a while. what he was really doing was sitting forward, lifting the leg nearest yours truly, and cutting one of the most melodious and malodorous farts to which i have ever personally borne witness. seriously, this thing had two distict pitches, and while it was brief, it was mighty. it sounded like gabriel's trumpet. and for me, it was kind of like the end of the world.

see, i'm the kind of person who has always found farting HILARIOUS. farting, to me, and to my family, has always been the height of humor. i know, we are sick people. my mother always playfully joked with me that thinking farting was funny was going to get me into trouble one day. she really DOES know everything. at the second the fart was blasted my way, and before my mouth had time to react to what my ears had just heard (and felt, there was concussion, people), my brain intercepted what could have been a disasterous response. i swear i was thinking about a million thoughts a minute, not the least of which was "what in the HELL just happend? did that a-hole really just fart AT me? isn't ANYONE going to say something? isn't HE going to say something? oh crap, i'm out of air...i have to breath...why God, why?" hope had put her head down on the table and was shaking with the effort of trying not to burst out laughing, everyone else just looked kind of stunned, like executive director had just called gandhi a cow-eating facist. all i'm thinking is "that fart smells like cobwebs. no, that fart smells like a basement. how in the hell do farts smell like that. he farted at ME. i want to kick that fart back up his butthole, not because he farted at me, and not because i don't like this person, but because i can't give him grief for it, can't acknowlege it, and i have to fake like it never happend, and i can't laugh about this and i think my lungs are going to explode."

and we finished the staff meeting in relative peace. i think. the lack of oxygen and the trauma may have caused me to black out for a few minutes. later that afternoon, while i was working on yet another stupid mailing that had to be folded, collated, and stuffed into the envelope (which had to have a BIG stamp, and be licked just right-- not too much spit, or the glue rubs off, but not too little because then it won't seal right...) executive director came into my office, stood by my little desk, put one hand in his pants al bundy-style, and proceeded to tell me i had just stuffed (thank God i hadn't sealed the envelopes yet...) and folded all the wrong things into about 80 million envelopes. and then he yelled at me. i took it, redid the job, and then promptly ran to the bathroom and cried like a little kid with a skinned knee. and then i went back down to my shabby little office and wrote the story you've just read (with minor adjustments, of course) and copied it to everyone in my email address book. i felt better.

i don't know why i felt the urge to re-tell that story. maybe it's because it's the best fart story i know. maybe it's because i'm a little nostalgic about jobs i used to have, right about now. maybe it's because it's just a funny story. maybe it's because it's almost 12:15 in the morning and i had too much diet coke and can't quite go to sleep just yet. i don't know. what i do know is that i hope it made you laugh. and think about how cobwebs smell.

mil besos-r