I have no idea why I thought of this today, but here goes. When I was in 2nd grade at St. Joe’s, I had a classmate named Maggie. Maggie was I’d say an average classmate – not really one very memorable, pretty quiet (much like myself), a little chunky. She was nice enough… I mean all the girls that age invite all the other girls from class to their birthday parties and such. So you could say she was a friend, even.
One day when we were all lined up in front of the blackboard waiting for recess (or maybe it was lunch or church; I don’t recall exactly). I was a rather quiet kid, and normally didn’t make a lot of ruckus in class, so naturally I stood quietly in line reading the map of the world. I remember looking at Africa, Niger specifically, thinking it was the same as “nigger” and wondering why our map had swear words. I vacillated over whether I should mention it to the teacher so she could remove it, or keep it a dirty secret for only myself to know. Aah to be 8 and so naive…
Anyway, back to the story. Suddenly Maggie, standing a few kids back from me, farted loudly. Everyone heard the unmistakable PFFFFTTT come from Maggie’s rear. Even in the dim light, you could see the redness creep up her face as her eyes darted around embarrassingly. She glanced desperately at the teacher, Mrs. Van Dam, as nearly all of the other kids laughed while several boys exclaimed “she FARTED – can you believe she FARTED??!! EEEEWWWW!”
When Mrs. Van Dam finally quashed the uncontrollable giggle-fest that invariably happens when anything fart related happens in a group of 8-year-olds, she reprimanded the class. Her explanation is the best part though. Instead of talking about how it is a natural bodily function, everyone does it or something to that effect, she opted to tell everyone that Maggie had some sort of disorder that causes her to “pass gas” involuntarily and that we should ignore it. What the hell? Seriously? I’ve never heard of “involuntary fart disease.”
So the memory of this event has randomly popped into my mind for years…that’s how big of an impression this ‘involuntary fart disease’ lecture made on me. I just can’t get it out of my mind now.
