Fart Jokes

The boy sat farting at my desk chair one fine morning last week as I listened from the bedroom assigning names to each one. The taxonomical science of fart naming is, in fact, partly an art. I don't mean an art in the sense that it gives intellectual pleasure, for the sciences are intended for intellectual enjoyment as much as for utility. I mean it's an art in that it appeals to the senses. The sense of hearing, in particular. Not the other senses so much.

His first rip, was, of course, the Bloodhound. Easily predictable in individuals with scrawny, bony asses, especially when released in a foam/fabric medium such as my desk chair. Being an early morning fart, this specimen was hardly muted in the least by the padded seat, and it traveled well. Just the sound of it brought back a pang of nostalgia. As everyone my age knows, the older you get and the fatter your ass gets, the bloodhound fades into memory along with the elephant, the motocross, and the bumblebee.

The next one, however, the Rotweiler was a bit of a surprise, since the boy really doesn't have the skeletal structure and muscle mass to survive it without risk of minor injury. There really isn't any need to describe the Rotweiler. Any woman who has been a wife longer than six or seven hours can recognize it. It has a serious and fundamental character. It announces power, authority, and most of all maturity. It proclaims, "I have arrived. I have a family. Give me a job." The fact that a kid who just topped a hundred pounds managed the Rotweiler so effortlessly shows the promise of greatness in him. It's entirely feasible that he could win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Maybe not as a Democrat from Kansas, but you never know.

After the Rotweiler, I did not seriously expect any more appreciable volume out of his ass. I was about to recommend that we seek medical attention for him when a sound rather akin to human speech came from my study. I couldn’t tell whether the boy was laughing or farting until I recognized the Dolphin. The Dolphin isn’t so much a type of fart as a family of farts. The Dolphin requires years of training and practice to recognize and classify, because, in addition to its complexity, it is somewhat rare. Thus, most people remain amateurs at recognizing the Dolphin and have even been caught up in attempts to converse with it.

In order to forestall any unkind criticism of my theory or my expertise, I wish to stress that I am not an expert, nor is this a theory of any kind. I would direct all critics to the scholarly journal articles on this topic if you wish to explore the scientific merits of acoustical analysis of farting. I am but a small voice in a vast, roaring ocean of sound, trying to find some sort of meaning through this one portal of my five senses.