Performance Anxiety

I've mentioned before that my current permenant partner on the ambulance has gastrointestinal issues resulting in varied -and frequent- sounds and smells. He has farts that last 30 seconds in duration and I swear make the ambulance vibrate. Ever make fart noises on you arm or with your hands and sometimes think they were completely unrealistic? They aren't. Sometimes he farts and I wonder where the lightening has struck.

The smells are no less incredible or varied then the sounds. My appreciation of the different types of gas the human body can produce has expanded rapidly (haha, expanded...gas jokes). Some of the smells are sharp but dissipate rapidly, while others are almost cloying and as he succinctly puts it, "they get stuck in my pants." He can fart outside the ambulance, climb inside, and the fart follows him. Crop dusting is not his strong suit.

Why all this talk about farts? Because everyone does it, and usually I take the crop dusting approach and sneak a little relief walking from the ambulance to the residence (as long as noone is close by) but lately I find I can't even do that. As I was driving home after work yesterday morning and seemed unusually gassy I realized I hadn't farted once since getting to work. Looking back I realized I have been holding my gas at work subconsciously and I think it's at least partially due to performance anxiety. Not only are my farts usually silent, but the deadliest of smells I can produce would rate an "eh" on the Chuck scale. How embarrassing would it be to say "that was me" and get the response of "what?". I explained this to him and he started laughing but then acknowledged that there is truth in my assessment because in the predominently male world of fart competiton, those who knew him would stop farting in his presence.

The only being I know who I think could take him in a smelliest fart competition...is Remus. Not only has Remus driven me from the room with potency and duration of lingering, but if Chuck farted at Remus, Remus would probably enjoy it.