Imitation
is the sincerest form of flatulence
My friend Flug attended a barbecue
last Saturday evening, uptown, and could not resist the baked beans – four
large plateloads. The next morning, he got up and went to church.
All right so far. Nothing wrong with
going to a barbecue, and nothing wrong with going to church. However, the
problem was that Flug had just sat down on his pew (a fateful word) when the
previous evening’s supper started bubbling and gurgling inside him; it was then
he knew trouble was coming. Fracking is controversial at the best of times, but
in church it assumes a greater influence, by far.
“If I only hadn’t had that fourth
plateful of beans,” he said, as the people on either side of him edged away.
Apparently they had also noted that the word ‘pew’ was an unfortunate name for
a church seat.
The minister, a gentleman who hailed
from Tabusintac or Black’s Harbour – one a them places – was getting on in
years and had learned diplomacy over those years. As much as he wanted to
wrinkle his nose every time he heard an eruption from the west side of the
congregation, he did not. He was turning the other cheek, as was Flug.
Rev. Samuales got through Hymn # 287
– “Harvesting the beans” and even #401 - “Open the windows of God’s House” but
when he came to #49 - “My senses tell of past trials” he had to wrinkle said
nose, just a little bit. His olfactory senses were in good working order, and
Flug’s digestion was too. By this time Flug was sitting all by himself in the
exact centre of the centre pew. The rest of the congregation were jammed at the
front and sides; it was as if Flug had set out to prove the poet wrong, the one
who said “No man is an island”. I think it was John Donne, but it could have
been Alan Ginsburg or Ogden Nash for all I know.
The sermon that day was about
gluttony, and Flug, who by this time was bright red from embarrassment and also
from his attempts to suppress his
flatulence, was the island in the stream, but generally speaking he was
refraining from any audible emissions. That is, until Rev. Samuales got to the
point where he admonished everyone that it was better to lie down with a cobra
than to overeat. Although he didn’t mention beans, we all – and especially Flug
– got the message. At that point Flug seemed to relax – bad move, so to speak -
it was as if a 1967 Camaro with double overhead cams and two Thrush mufflers
suddenly came to life in a closed room.
There followed a veritable stampede
for the door, and it was led by Rev. Samuales, cursing like a
longshoreman. Although he was 76 and
had had two hip replacments since 2011, he ran like a young deer, a gazelle
ready to trample the younger members of the flock should they get between him
and fresh air. Mrs. Gandon with her walker was right behind him, followed by
the Eerteex sisters and their chauffeur. Although in his leisure time that
chauffeur was a star striker on the Perth United soccer team, he didn’t stand a
chance against the determined efforts of those pensioners.
Meanwhile Flug, relieved of much
pressure, was just sitting there in and on his pew. In support of my old
friend, I hadn’t joined the rush to the door and the resulting carnage when
they all reached the narrow cement step at the same time. My nostrils had been
pretty well ruined back in 1969 anyway, when I had stopped my motorcycle at a
place in upstate New York to see what all the fuss was about. It was a very
smoky farm near a town called Woodstock where a rock happening was…well, happening.
Three days later, the haze of acrid smoke had ruined the cilia, trillia and
flesh of my nostrils so that Flug’s little emanations were barely noticed.
“I guess I was over-served in the
beans department,” he said as we walked home through the fumes. “I mustn’t be
such a glutton next time. Three platefuls will be enough. I hope no one tries
to imitate me next time there’s a barbecue.”
“Flug, Flug, Flug,” I said,
repeating his name so he was fairly certain that it was he being addressed.
“Flug, you weren’t over-served. You over-served yourself – transitive verb.
You’re a glutton, the same as I am. You imitated me. However, I feel certain
that sometime in the next week you will be getting an envelope in the mail. It
will contain a bill. Not a good kind of bill, like currency, but a bill for
fumigating that poor church. It was built in 1878 and has had a quiet life, but
it doesn’t deserve what it went through today.”
-end-
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