January 2003

The Zoo is the Best Place to Fart in Public

So, I had an epiphany one day recently on the way home from work. I was standing on the platform at Union Station, amidst many, many trains, smoking a cigarette. I was standing there atempting to conceal from the frantic horde of pushy Washington Commuters that I had a pungent case of gas due to the McDonalds sausage, egg & chee biscuit that I had for breakfast. Then it hit me. This place was filled with locomotives, many of them the smelly, noisy diesel variety.

So I let loose with impunity.

Nobody noticed. And uptight Washingtron Commuters would certainly make it apparent that they were ignoring you if they had noticed. That's the way it works here- the uppity honkies from the suburbs, via rigidly unsubtle body language, indicate that they disapprove of whatever it is that you're doing. Of course, they refuse to confront you- even if you are scrawling obscenities onto a window in the Metro with a sharpie.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. After getting away with adding to the air pollution of metropolitan Washington, DC, it occurred to me that a careful set of parameters must be devised for when and where you can get away with farting in public.

This is when I called Grandpa.

"Dude! I just got away with murder!"

"What?" inquired my co-conspirator, "You killed somebody? Fuckin' A!"

"No, not literally, you dumb dick," I elaborated. Then I went on to convey my epiphany.

"Brilliant! This calls for action."

"No shit," I said, "and I've got a plan."

The following weekend Grandpa came down to DC and we sprang into action. The first order of business was to collect on all the tacos than Grandpa clearly owed me and my superior intellectual capacity. So we started at the north end of Mt. Pleasant Street and hit every taco joint and papusaria for 20 blocks, ending up at Burrito Brothers on 18th St. in Adams-Morgan. Three hours after we had started this taco hike, we were clearly in pain. A happy pain. The kind of pain that told us that Phase Two of The Plan would be a smashing success.

The next step was to hit the streets and unleash some mayhem. We started by shuffling through Rock Creek Park to the National Zoo. We walked right past the Pandas and went straight to the Ape House. We found the most crowded area and stood there watching the monkeys masturbate and fling shit around. "Lucky fuckers," we agreed as we unclenched and let the taco by-products fill the room. Nobody noticed. Not the smell, and not the sound- who could possibly notice us with all these monkeys making such a scene?

Having completed the first experiment in Phase Two of The Plan, we caught the Red Line downtown. In transit we discovered that the Metro is not the best place to fart in public. Unless you are trying to piss somebody off. Then its the best. Why? Because there are ample opportunities to give somebody the ass-face on the Metro. People sit next to you as you stand. Faces at ass level riding up the escalator. If you seek revenge on somebody, you can easily put your ass in their face here without looking like some sort of pervert. So fart in the Metro if you are trying to ruin somebody's day. They can't escape it.

After a transfer to the Green Line we were on the National Mall. "Look at all these fucking museums packed to the gills with tourists," I intoned to Grandpa as I swept my out-stretched arm out before me.

"Let's hit it."

We decided that the best place to go, clearly, would be the National Gallery of Art. Sure, farting next to a woolly mammoth in the Museum of Natural History would be hysterical, but we had no time for that. At this stage of Phase Two, it was apparent that we needed to get back to World Headquarters within about an hour or else there would be trouble.

The long and short of it is this: if you squat ever so slightly, with hands on knees, in front of Salvador Dali's "Last Supper" and let it all hang out- I mean really let loose- and follow it up with a loud "aaahhhhh," or a comment on "how it burns," you WILL be asked to leave the Gallery.

Phase Three entailed picking up a fresh roll of double-ply TP on the way back to World HQ and riding the porcelain for the remainder of the evening.

The empirical evidence of this experiment confirmed our hypothesis exactly as we had predicted. The Zoo is the best place to flatulate in public consequence-free.