The Birth of the Fart Dictionary
January 21, 2011
The Birth of The Fart Dictionary
It was another day of walking counter-clockwise around the pool, grudgingly coaxing creativity out of my left hemisphere and onto paper, and I’m duly rewarded with email number ninety-seven stating “…though your writing has merit…”, or “…it’s an interesting concept but…” Rejection, I’ve prepared myself for this. It’s part of the process. But that particular day was a bad day, or maybe a good day, to tell me “no”.
I settled on my patio and commenced irrigating my self doubt with a bucket full of chilly lagers and an overall screw it attitude. I’m rarely a pessimist, but today I was ticked. So I did what any great writer wannabe would do and asphyxiated my recent refusals in a cooler full of beer. I deserved it. The sun will rise tomorrow.
Aaahhh, and there, across the table from me: my lovely wife in all her elegance. That beautiful, always supportive, love of my life who just carelessly and shamelessly annihilated me in several games of backgammon. She didn’t just win; she kicked my brain, and did it so gleefully. Great, more fuel to the proverbial fire of my currently sedated writing skills. My mood went from foul to downright rotten and stinky. I leaned back in my chair, after clearly stating that I’ll never play backgammon again and, well, I farted. She giggled, and a beer-headed, foggy idea came to me.
“What kind of fart would you call that?” I asked.
I quickly answered my own question. “That was a defeated fart. A fart intended solely and maliciously for your board game competitor because they just beat the crap out of you.”
She laughed, I laughed. I grabbed my journal and my Webster’s and spent the rest of the afternoon slogging sweaty beers and letting the fart definitions fly. The world soon became a fart canvas for my somewhat deranged, minus a few brain cells, imagination. I could do this all night – drink, write about farts, and laugh hysterically with my soul mate.
The next morning I sleepily rumbled to my desk for a possible accomplish-something-literary-breakthrough, and noticed my scribbling from the day before. The semi-inebriated handwriting was difficult to recognize at first, but the words lunged at me. Read me. Read me again. This is funny stuff. I’ve thoroughly entertained myself. Was this a sample of the artistic goop that’s sitting in my already strange-sense-of-humored soul? And it’s released by hops and barley? I hope not. Old age runs in my family and I’ll need an intact liver.
So I challenged myself. Do it again. Sit your hung-over, no breakfast, caffeine butt down and have a repeat performance. I randomly picked letters of the alphabet and created more original fart definitions. I read the business section of the paper and came up with not-so-politically-correct farts. I walked my dog and thought of farts. I sat in the bathroom while my wife showered; talking so incessantly about farts I had to grab my pen and journal. This stuff was oozing out of me faster than chorizo out of a used car salesman on a laxative overdose. And it was funny.
Fast forward six months and I’ve found an agent, editor, and publisher who believe in my three-legged humor. Did I think a dictionary of farts would be my premiere literary work? No. Am pleased with myself? Yes, I think so.
And don’t forget, everybody farts. Except Zoey Deschanel, there’s just no way.
