Who woke up the Rabbit?

The question has been posed more than once as to why this column is called ‘Breaking the Wind.’ That it sounds a bit ‘anal’ as one reader put it bluntly, I would be the first to admit that indeed it does. We all know what to ‘break wind’ is about, don’t we? For those with a nervous disposition, breaking wind is the rapid evacuation of gases from the lower intestine under extreme pressure.

It so happened that one sunny afternoon I was standing at a street corner with a friend. We had just had amawoso (braai/barberque) with the usual ‘salad’ of onions, tomatoes and cucumber, koMpofu in Luveve 5. Suddenly, a revolting smell wafted around us. I turned to him and asked, "Did you just let out some, eh, very bad wind just now?" To which he bluntly responded, "Of course I did, you don't think I smell like this all the time do you?"

I was stunned. The norm is that someone who is accused of ‘waking up the rabbit’ as we say in SiNdebele vehemently denies having done so. Then it dawned on me that breaking wind can happen to any one at any time and there is no cause for embarrassment. So the term ‘Breaking Wind’ came up. The editor merely refined it to ‘Breaking the Wind’, that is, the act of expelling a lot of hot air through this column.

For your own information, Jim Dawson actually wrote a book, "Who Cut the Cheese, A Cultural History of the Fart." Imagine, someone sitting down to write all 200 pages about shooting gas? The world and its crazy inhabitants never cease to amaze. The term ‘to cut the cheese’, we are told, originated when someone sliced into a new wheel of cheese, but the most likely a brick of Limburger cheese, which stinks terribly despite it being fresh. We have more colourful terms describing it though.

The average adult, writes a serious Dawson, breaks wind between 6 - 20 times a day. I can tell you that the average male breaks wind a lot more if you ask me. It’s a combination of gases like nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane and hydrogen sulfide. Which explains why the ozone layer is disappearing so fast.

The mind boggles when you imagine how all this data was collected. Did people actually volunteer for a study with samples being analysed in a lab? What a challenging vocation sniffing out the facts on flatulence must be. What about the qualification, a degree in Fartology perhaps?

Talking of sniffing, have you ever noticed how the smell is inversely proportional to the noise? The silent ones are deadly enough to be classified under BWMD – Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction. These are known in some circles as SBDs – Silent But Deadlies. The loud ones are usually just a lot of hot air!

And ever notice that when you are tempted to let a silent one slip it usually breaks the sound barrier and how embarrassing that can be when the Miss Zimbabwe of your dreams is in the vicinity? Never trust the nether end for discipline at such critical moments.

It reminds one of an incident that occurred to this colleague of mine. After having bravely prevented ‘you know what’ from making a loud and humiliating exit in a bus for what seemed like hours, he arrived to what he thought was an empty house. He then eagerly unlocked the door and let it rip with a thunderous roar. Obviously relieved, he turned round to face his shocked in-laws who were by now gasping for breath!

As far as bodily functions go, farting is as common as sneezing, yawning, coughing and peeing. It often happens simultaneously with these. How many times do people either sneeze and pfoof or cough and pfoof or pee and pfoof at the same time?

When that happens you just want to disappear into the bowels of the earth. It is my contention that the status of breaking wind should be elevated so that you don't have to feel like that. Since I don't see that happening in the short term, may I offer some gilt-edged advice on how to save face should you happen to accidentally let off, pop off, cut the cheese, fluff, pfoof, and wake up the rabbit or whatever euphemism you use to describe it.

You can look around as if trying to figure out who the rotten it was who had sugar beans and hot peppers for dinner. It could be anyone including the guy in an expensive Armani suit for breaking wind breaks all social bounderies.

Or you could brazen it out; acting as if it never happened even though it's still ricocheting around the room defying Graham’s Law of diffusion.

How about shocking everyone by laughing and saying, "Hell wasn't that a ripper, my mum would be proud." I am sure one or two will get the joke though I doubt it if your mother would.

When you accidentally let it loose inside the bed, fluff the sheets to disperse the smell. If find your partner fluffing the sheets tonight, beat a hasty retreat, at least until the pong has dissipated.

For those SBDs, move quickly into the next aisle of the supermarket or library leaving a trail of pollution in your wake. They are likely to lay the blame on something and not someone.

In a lift, get out on the next floor leaving the other lift dwellers to suffer. Dogs make very useful accessories. 'Danger, suka lapha nja! (Get the F out of here, filthy dog)' If animals aren't close at hand, babies are also great scapegoats where you can lovingly 'Oh Themba did you poo in your nappy again?' knowing fully well that Little Themba cannot point you out in a parade.

Beware. Sometimes displacing the blame can backfire as it did to a very rich and respected woman. She held a tea party for her wealthy and influential friends and ate more cucumber sandwiches than was good for her. During one of those deadly silences that happen in even the best of parties, a colossal breaking of wind came from the hostess's direction. Never one to be easily embarrassed she quickly said to her butler, "James stop that immediately!" The butler turned slowly and replied in his most superior voice, "Certainly madam, which way did it go?"

So when the editor asked me for a title for this column I was well and truly stumped. My previous columns have had their fair share of stupid titles. So it should not surprise you at all if I told you that my first column was aptly named - don’t laugh - ‘When the cow dung hits the fan.’ It promptly led to my being shipped to Siberia, but that’s another story.

If anyone tells you that they don't release any gases, they are either lying or they're aliens from Mars or else you better get the hell out of there for they are about to explode.

A word of caution: do not attempt to ignite a fart, its highly flammable! By the way, it’s the hydrogen sulphide that produces the deadly funk, so watch out!


Note: This article appeared in the New.Zimbabwe.com column Breaking the Wind which appears every Friday on www.newzimbabwe.com by the same writer.