(9) CONCERNING THE DELICATE TOPIC OF BREAKING WIND

         

     Of all the blunt four-letter words we inherited from the Anglo-Saxons, I most dislike the one that starts with f and ends with t.  I remember cringing with shock when that f-word became an active verb in the 1974 movie Blazing Saddles.  Jack, the dearly beloved I had met two years earlier, burst out laughing while I, like Queen Victoria, remained unamused throughout the long-winded performance.

      Another gentleman, the husband of my friend Maggie, was also unperturbed in the presence of a f- - t.   She was planting rosebushes one afternoon when Kenneth came out to see what she was doing.  “Would you like some help?” he asked.  At that moment Maggie f - - - -d.

     “A simple no would suffice,” said Kenneth.

     To guard against such social errors, which according to Google are more common among the elderly, I recently stock-piled products like Beano, Beanaid, and Gas Relief tablets.   As I was collecting them in my local pharmacy, I decided to buy enough so I’d never have to return for more. Glancing toward the front of the store, I was relieved to see that the checkout person was a female.  I mean, what woman, no matter how old she is, wants to hand even one packet of Beano to a male clerk?  Or a female clerk, for that matter.  Especially a young female clerk.  

     I was approaching the counter where a customer was taking her purchases out of her cart, when another customer came along behind me.  At that point a male clerk appeared at the far end of the counter. 

     “You go ahead,” I said with a courteous smile to the woman following me.  No, she said, you were first, you go ahead. 

     Reluctantly I toddled over to the fellow standing behind the counter and even more reluctantly unloaded my array of gas relief products.  I wished I was wearing dark glasses, knowing my left eye is inclined to turn inward when I am stressed.  The ordeal over, I drove home and dumped my purchases into my night table drawer.  

     Now I have a new worry.  What are my children going to think when I die and one of my sons opens that drawer?  Will their collective last memory of me be: “Good grief!  Never knew the old girl was that full of hot air!”