Emissions Reduction

It was probably that delightful cafeteria lunch (a chicken pasta bowl with various vegetables, including peas, and chili-garlic sauce) that did it. I usually hit the gym three nights during the week, as well as the weekend, and Thursday is back day, i.e. the day I do back exercises. For the last couple of months I've been getting back into deadlifting, which involves squatting down, bent over, and picking up a big weight bar from the floor, standing up and then putting it down again. Repeatedly. And then with more weight, and so on. It's a great exercise, even if it does sometimes feel like your spine is going to burst out.

Anyway, it was pretty busy in the gym tonight; I'm not sure why - usually it's getting quieter by Thursday. Maybe everyone was getting in some penance in advance of their anticipated Christmas gastronomic excess. So I began loading up the bar and working through my sets. There were people behind me, on the incline benches, and next to me in a squat rack. Also there was that beautiful blonde trainer with the wonderful arse working out some girl who was less of a hopeless case than usual.

I was still working my way up, and got to 385lb. I tightened my weight belt, bent down, got a good grip on the bar and straightened up. Then I lowered the weight to the floor and began to lift again. When it was about 12 inches off the floor, in the middle of no-man's land, my sphincter spontaneously let out a gale-force rasping fart. There was nothing I could do - at that point in the movement your arse can pretty much do what it wants.

There was the sudden clang of about thirty people simultaneously dropping their weights to the floor. In the spinning class everyone turned and looked. The girls in the step class halted their jumping and jerked around, an expression of horror on their faces. The music in the background faded to a halt. People on treadmills paused in shock and promptly flew off backwards. The bloke in the squat rack developed a sudden need to go and get a drink. All around me was complete silence as I finished out my set.

Actually it wasn't that bad. The bloke next to me did suddenly fuck off, but no-one could fart a whole gym to silence could they? However, when I got done with my set I was overcome with a desperate desire to laugh out loud. Maybe it's that part of me which still loves toilet humor, or maybe I was just secretly relieved that I hadn't shit myself. I mean, that chili garlic sauce was obviously powerful stuff, and no-one wants to waddle off with pants full of gravy now, do they? (I have to confess that this thought lurked in the back of my mind as I moved up to the higher weights.) Gym farts usually work better as the "lift one cheek and slide it out, hoping no-one notices and then quickly walking away" variety.

I glanced over at the blonde trainer with the wonderful arse but her inscrutable expression was giving nothing away. Did she hear the giant fart or not? Now I'll never know, if she avoids making eye contact in future, whether it's because she's shy, I'm scary, she's intimidated by my chest hair, she avoids all strange men in the gym because they all attempt to get access to her wonderful arse (and it's sure-to-be equally wonderful next-door neighbor) or just because I publicly registered a 7 on the Richter scale with my nether-trumpet.

Anyway, I'll be back in the gym a lot during Christmas week, on account of there being fuck-all else to do here, and I can only imagine what turkey, stuffing, sprouts and chestnuts are going to do. Plus all the Stilton cheese, of course. I wonder if it's considered polite to light a match between sets?


Copyright 2007 Edward Bison