The Art of the Fart

I will start off this edition of Robbie’s Rants with some tragic news: I have a friend who does not think farts are funny. Let me clarify...a dude who doesn’t think that farts are funny. Are you as shocked as I was? I hope so. Last time I was this shocked I saw Dane Cook write a punch line (just kidding... I’ve never seen that). I didn’t know that this type of man existed, but last Sunday I was proved wrong. I’ll break down the scenario:

We were sitting around watching football on a big screen TV and drinking beers. You know, guy stuff—no women around at all (sadly). If this isn’t a picture perfect time and setting for some serious butt trumpet action, I don’t know what is. So I gear up, even lift my other cheek as to not send it in his direction, and let one rip. Hilarity. Pure hilarity. This fart hit two different notes in its short lifespan: it started with a nice, full-bodied bass, something like a smoke stack on the Titanic. Then, out of nowhere, it trailed up to a high pitch, as if my fart had just been kicked in the balls. It was a classic example of what I call a "Question Fart." You know what I’m talking about...the ones that sound as if it were shrugging its shoulders and saying, "Whaaaaat?"

I’m rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably. It was a beauty. But my tool of a friend just says, "That’s gross man," and continues to watch the game. I was appalled. I couldn’t think straight for the rest of the day. I realized that I have been waltzing through life just assuming that every man thinks farts are the funniest things on earth—but my fart fantasy had just been crushed. Maybe in the afterlife we can all be so lucky.

I love farts. Farts are hilarious. There's something about the sound of farts that is just so silly that we have to laugh. They are nothing to be ashamed or grossed out about. It's like a natural, stinky music that just rings from our bodies, reminding us that life doesn't always have to be so serious. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that I have laughed at every fart I have ever witnessed, let alone the ones I have home-brewed in my butt brewery. I mean, what is the oldest gag in the history of gags? A whoopee cushion, no contest.

Farts are a timeless joke. I bet cavemen sat around on giant rocks, laughing at each other's farts (right before they clubbed a woman in the head, and then dragged them by their hair into their caves to have sex with them of course).

Look even further back... I can just picture two Triceratops walking along ancient Earth, one of them farting, and them both laughing hysterically. Can you even fathom how funny a Triceratops fart would sound? Is this too real for you, O’ Great Fearer of Farts? If I had a time machine, that's the first thing I'd go back to see. Sometimes I sit around and try to imagine what a Triceratops fart would sound like—my guess would be something like an elephant sliding down the side of an empty swimming pool, but that’s neither here nor there.

Moral of the story: do not be ashamed or disgusted by farts. They are the oldest joke in the book, but a timeless classic. If you want me to laugh, fart. That’s all it takes—because I am a man.


--Robbie Pickard