The Silent Fart 
 
An elderly couple was attending church services. About
halfway through, she leaned over and whispered to her
 husband, 'I just let out a long silent fart. What do you
 think I should do?' 

He replied, 'Put a new battery in your hearing aid.'

Have a great Thursday!

Have you ever been in a situation where it was inappropriate to laugh, but you couldn't help yourself?

Maybe ten years ago, I was at my parents' house for Christmas dinner.  My grandfather and his wife were there.  It

was a rare cold Christmas, and my dad had a lovely fire roaring in the fireplace.  My brother Mark and I were sitting there watching football, when g'pa's wife, Kathleen, noticed there was a lovely fire.  (Kathleen wasn't always the most perceptive and lucid of people, bless her heart)  She said something like "Oh, what a lovely fire," and stood up to investigate further.  She started shuffling across the floor, issuing a loud, trombone-esque fart with every step.  She took small steps, and it's a big room.  BLAAP.  BOOM.  PFFFFT.  THHPPTPTPT.  A-OOOO-GAH. SQUEEEEAK.  PUFF.  BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.  All I could think was, "Don't look at your brother.  Don't look at your brother.  Don'tlookatyourbrotherdon'tlookatyourbrotherdon'tlookatyourbrother." 

Naturally, I peeked out the corner of my left eye, and caught him peeking out the corner of his right eye. 

We lost it.  I swear, we laughed till our faces hurt, the dog was scared, and our tears soaked the furniture.  The idea that Kathleen had just propelled herself across the room--toward an open fire, for cripes sakes--was just too much to keep inside.  My mom came in to ask what we were laughing at.  We told her, and she gave one of those terse momisms: "She couldn't help it, I'm sure.  You shouldn't laugh."

I think she was just mad that she missed the brass band and potential fireworks.  Over a decade later, we still crack up over that special Christmas concert. 

Show us the person you want to be like in life. 
Submitted by Beshr.

Bert Blyleven has the best stats of any pitcher not in the Hall of Fame (287 wins, #5 in career strikeouts).  He threw the nastiest curveball I've ever seen.  Plus, he got away with dropping an f-bomb on live tv, and he has one hell of a great hobby (see t-shirt).

Famed Monty Python member Eric Idle once said that when in doubt, fart jokes are invariably funny.

Sure.  I admit that I used to agree.  There's something comical about farting.  The very word "fart" is onomatopoeic, like "gurgle" or "hiss."  Moreover, it's just...funny.  Face it, when a baby smiles, nobody says, "Oh, it's probably gastric reflux." It's gas.  Babies pass gas, and they find it amusing.  High college kids will classify their flatus in some gassy taxonomy. ("There's the scrambled egg fart; the broccoli and cheese soup fart; the Popeye's Red Beans and Rice fart; the pizza and $6.99 a case beer fart," ad nauseam) 

Soon, the laughter will stop.  Our world is in the midst of numerous flatulence related crises.  No less an authority than the U.N. has decried the dangers of unfettered farting:

Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO₂ from cars

Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

(read the entire article in The Independent (U.K.) online edition)

This is the United Nations, so you know the situation is dire.  Gassy babies and Monty Python troupers might find farts funny, but there is no less mirthful group than the U.N., and if the U.N. says that, "(farting cows) are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs," then by damn it's cause for panic. 

Tempting as it is, I shall leave Earth's cow scientists to promulgate solutions (mandatory cow Beano, cowtalytic converters, advancing low-emission hybrid cow technology, eg), while I examine a far more frightening fart development: "intentional farting."

According to noted journalistic icon, The Knox County Times, "it seems some Camden-Rockport Middle School eighth-grade boys are...making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus."

Chilling.  Worse yet, a CRMS insider reports that much of this intentional farting occurred in Science class.  Images of the Hindenburg tragedy come to mind at the thought of a roomful of gassy 13 year-olds and lit bunsen burners.  Oh, the humanity. 

Thankfully, alert educators have sought to take the wind out of the ersatz butt-brass blowers' sails by imposing detention for their disruptive deflation.  (And God save the teacher in the detention room)

The mainstream media are rife with lightweight non-stories about Super Tuesday, the wobbly economy, and Britney Spears' padded room vacation.  How sad that this issue is relegated to being the butt of jokes written by some cheeky gasbag blogger, who isn't on crack, but whose writing blows nonetheless.  It's an ill wind breaking through the world today, as cows and pubescent teens toot their tushie trombones. 

Eric Idle may laugh at fart jokes, and gassy babies may smile.  But with the explosive growth in unfunny methane emissions, our ecology will soon hit bottom. 

Then again, at least we'll suffocate and die with grins on our faces and skid-marks in our shorts.