The "Soda Bark"

Fun fact:
Sprite cans
don't look like
this anymore.
*Mind blown*

To this day I am addicted... URRRP! (aw yeah) ...to all things fizz. Even plain old water, just put some bubbles in it and I'm good to go. These days I'll usually be in the process of finishing off a can of something or other any given hour of the day and my palette changes a lot (I've switched sides in the Cola War... sorry Pepsi, I still like your diet though), but when I was a kid my thing was Sprite, maybe because it was sweeter than 7up. I lived on the stuff. I drank it like water. You know how when people can't sleep they usually go for a glass of water or a swig from the ol' milk carton at 3am? I was not one of those people. When I was wandering the house in my undignified attire at 3 in the morning looking for fluids, I was gunning for the Sprite, because hey, it's "caffeine free" after all. That means I could have it before bedtime and not have to worry about being up at 3am and unable to sleep... which obviously didn't happen.

And not only did all this carbonation excess from the Sprite never fail to induce a powerful spell of deep-throated and continuous burping, it also made those burps taste their very best. That is, like pure monstrous awesome. And I don't care if you're going to hate me for saying it, but if you were ever your 8-year-old self once, you should know what I mean when I say that the second best part of putting soda into you was what it causes to come back out of you! I might polish off a can and lay back bobbing my head for minutes as the "rolling thunder" was wrought, or I might go a whole minute, the pressure building like a volcano, and then just release it like a beast! Loud and proud enough to make Simba blush, and especially if there were other maturity-impaired persons in the area, or just anyone who can appreciate ART when they hear it. 

Later I moved on up and outgrew such silly pursuits. I mean, why practice such an immature pastime as the "soda bark" once you've figured out how to burp loudly on command? My friend Nick taught me how to burp on command in the 3rd grade, and at school no less! It was like learning a super power. Now my burps were no longer tethered to food and drink, but anywhere and anytime, and with some practice (and a lot of accidental puking), I was able to make them at least as loud as the good old "soda barks" of yore. I know, it's a useful skill for any boy, but then again, seen any mammoths lately? We gotta do something to feel like true champions of manliness in a world with no mammoths! This is what we have to work with.

The only problem, besides the fact that girls avoided me like the plague (either grossed out or genuinely scared of the fucking TIGER I had roaring in my throat!) and teachers either thought I was just priming myself for the principal's office or about to explode ("are you okay Mark?), was that burps on command never came with that sweet, fresh, lemon-lime zest that just made the soda barks all the more special. But no worries, that's what burp-talking was for! And that usually consisted of me saying "penis" over and over, delivered in the key of tiger roar level belch. I was just a few letters away from the full alphabet.

It really is an art. And like any art, anyone can do it (anyone can pick up a paintbrush or bang on a piano too), but it takes talent and practice to REALLY rip 'em out loud and proud, like beautiful crescendos of throaty bullfrog blasts. I was never a prodigy, but I could hold my own. I mean, nothing was funnier sometimes than being around mixed company, like other parents or teachers, sitting there and letting out this ear-piercingly loud monster URRRRRRRRRRRRP!!! like a fucking subwoofer blitzing out, a tire popping, a lion roaring, or whatever else a deep-throated, full-throttle, earthquake-inducing, rip of esophageal man-thunder could be compared to... only to follow it up with a cute little "excuse me!"... like, you know, because that makes it all okay. And then do it again! Ah... memories.

Sometimes I swear I sucked so much air in, some of it would go missing inside me, only to come out as a fart instead. I mean, you'd be sitting there just clenching up again and again, sucking in air, putting stress on your whole body, and suddenly it would come out the other end.... FRRRRPF! And then it's like, wow, that was an unexpected treat! Yeah, nothing was wasted! Me and Nick both got a kick out of that, and wondered if it could work the same in reverse, or if we could master burping and farting at the same time, which is to be living the dream. We never reached that level though. That's beyond manly. That's God tier.

Still, with a little more practice...

End the Overalls

For some reason parents in the 80's and 90's saw it necessary to lock their children into their pants. I don't know if this was supposed to be some kind of Puritanical chastity device or a necessary measure to combat pedos in the times of the Satanic daycares (never understood the panic by the way... all I got at my Satanic daycare was a "time out" for pulling my pants down...), but like all well-intentioned 80s-90s ploys to potentially protect us from the big bad world, it backfired royally, and once again it was only us kids who suffered. I don't know if that's the reason these particular type of pants became fashionable, but I wouldn't doubt it.

In any case, these things called "overalls" were somewhat fashionable at the time, especially for girls, but where they at least didn't crowd their style (at least for tomboys), the whole "farmer John" hillbilly look was not only trauma-inducing for anyone who wasn't a girl, but was also potentially hazardous. Once again, I speak from personal experience. I mean, as weird as it sounds, it's an immutable truth... sometimes in life you just need to be able to take your pants off, or at least be able to get at your merchandise, and that's true for everyone of every time period. These pants in question made it damn near impossible to do just that, which is why they were evil. Either that or I was an idiot kid. 

I happen to remember one panic-inducing bathroom experience at school when I was little, being unable to unhook those metal loops (this was when I was more youngish, you see). I just could not unloop them no matter how long I tried, and I wasn't going to go ask someone to "do it for me" because that's embarrassing, ridiculous, and probably could've landed that person in jail. And no, there was no zipper or anything else, which in my opinion just makes any piece of clothing a torture device. So it was either stay locked in and suffer, of somehow get out of the contraption and do what more and more ferociously needed to be done! Well, it wasn't much of a choice either way. One way or another, that baby was being born! But the seconds turned into minutes. I was standing there in the bathroom stall at school desperately tugging on the loops, furiously yanking at the clips, stomping my feet, holding back the internal surge with all my might and strength, doubling over on the wall, clenched up, sweating, every muscle straining, holding that beast back even as it was already stepping out bit by bit... just desperately NEEDING that sweet sweet release. That big put-off long-awaited ka-BOOM!... but then... but then!!

Actually I don't remember how I solved the problem, or if I even did... But one thing is for sure... one way or another... it came out... and it was most likely both horrendous and yet utterly GLORIOUS. I'm sure angels with harps descended on each side of me singing "Hallelujah." Either way, perhaps I blocked it out for my own good. It was fucking traumatic, that's all I know. Everyone talks about how great childhood was in the 80s and 90s simply because they've been able to block out things like this! This is why I implore people today to never put anyone over (or under) the age of five into these things. Maybe these were cool for guys back in the 30s, but those days done.

Girls actually do look pretty good in overalls, I got to admit, especially when it's all they got on... but what do I know about "clothing?" ;)

Nickelodeon Gak

Even if you were living under a rock in the 90s, you probably came across Nickelodeon Gak (I think that's where they got it from). It was slimy, stretchy, liquid-y, snot in a plastic cup, and it was fun enough if only because it farted when you squished it in its cup. Gak was also probably the substance that filled me and my friends' heads most of the time back then, and not just because I tried eating it once.

Sure, you could press it into things for indentations, or bounce it off the desk, or roll it into balls, but the best thing was that if you squished it into its cup, it farted! Yeah, you could stretch it over your mouth and blow a small bubble through it, or pull it to pieces and stick things on the wall with it... but just so you know, it did indeed FART when squeezed... kind of like me. Are you picking up what I'm laying down? Forget the other stuff it did! Just call this stuff the iFart of the 90s! And how appropriate that it should be, seeing as it smelled like some kind of chemical waste.

Gak lost its fun when it started getting dry and crumbly, or once it got sat on and pressed into the couch cushions or stepped on and stuck up your sneaker treads. The novelty soon wore off, but get yourself another batch and it was sticky, oozy, goo-y squishy fun all over again. And for little weirdos like me, anything that meant never-ending ripply, blurping, raspy fart sounds seemed like the only toy I'd ever really need, even if the "sound effects" weren't really up to my exacting standards, but there were a LOT of them. And just like a fart, only try to get your brother to eat it 

Alright Class, Form a Line...

If your elementary school was anything like mine, you probably spent a third of your day in line. There were lines to get into the building from the bus, lines to use the bathroom, lines to go to the gym, lines to leave the gym, lines to go to lunch, lines to go to recess, lines to come in from recess, lines to go wait for the bus...etc. They crisscrossed the school, went up and down stairs, stretched the length of the brick walls and carpets with no end in sight... unless you were the end (in which case, your day sucked). "Hey you in front of me, no farting!"

At least 10 minutes of every hour was spent lining up at the end of every major class before being shuffled on to the next. What were they teaching us? How to use a DMV branch? How to get a deal on black Friday? And if you cut, it was just as painful as either of those scenarios. If you so much as cut one space ahead, you were going to bare the sting of poison arrows of death, and they'd be coming at you in the words, "Hey! No Cutting! Teacher! He cut! No Cutting!!" If you cut, sometimes you had to go to the back of the line, to hang out with the other losers. Other times, you'd be sent to death row and executed (...a lineup there too).

During all that useless tedium in the lines, we usually tried to find ways to entertain ourselves. One game I remember was the staring contest. You look the kid in front of you in the eyes, and they look back, and the first one to crack up loses. Now I can't stress enough how much I sucked at this game. A tomboyish girl and I once engaged in a staring contest while in line, and she was going cross-eyed, sticking out her tongue, pulling her lips open.. and I was busting! She wasn't cracking up, per se... just visibly in hysterics behind buttoned lips. As far as I know, that's cheating, but then again, I didn't know too far.

Less of a game and more of an annoyance was the classic flat tire. This was usually only doable if the line was in motion. You simply step on the back of the kid's shoe in front of you as they are walking, causing it to come off their heel, and thus causing temporary hilarity. This worked best with girls who usually wore less rugged shoes, but man did they go off every time I tried it! Let me take this opportunity to apologize to any girl out there whose expensive shoes may have had a buckle snap thanks to my ingenious attempts at momentary comic relief...

Probably the grossest game you could play in line was the spit swap, where you spit in your hand and then shake the hand of the person behind you. Depending on how coordinated the line was, this might set off a chain reaction whereby the shaker becomes the spitter for the kid behind him...etc. It's kind of like the grade school version of passing around STDs, and I don't think I could recommend doing it, although it probably accounted for some of the chronic strep throat that gained me many a day off from school in my time.

The funniest game though (besides farting on the kid in back of you) was undoubtedly the good old nut kick. This was only achieved if the victim was a boy, and only excusable when the perpetrator was a girl (and yet still somehow seemed less cruel if they were another boy). This one's pretty self explanatory, but usually involved either back kicking a boy behind you in the groin (the preferred method if you were a girl), or kicking up through his legs when behind him (if you were a girl and really good at it). This might be done for any number of warranted reasons (like it being funny), or (if you were a girl) just because he was in your way.

But while that may have been the funniest, by far the funnest game was without a doubt the domino effect. This should be self explanatory. One kid (usually at the back of the line) pushes another, and that kid knocks into another kid, and before you know it, the whole line is going down... and by the time it gets to front, bodies are hitting the floor! It could be revenge on the kids in the front of the line, or just random idiocy, but when it happened, it was the highlight of any day for sure. The teachers may have cancelled our recess once or twice over it, but it was worth it.

At the end of the day, I remember the minutes ticking down as we all stood in line, waiting for the buses to show up, minute after minute, inching further and further up... I remember standing there with all these fantasies snowballing in my head about laying down and falling asleep right there, and what would probably happen. If I did, nobody would be allowed to "cut" me, so they'd all have to wait for me to move. Then they'd all miss their bus and they'd have to all cram into the office and place about 30 different calls to come get picked up. Damn the bureaucracy! 

But at least then no one would be a filthy cutter. 

School Floor-Time Farts

Me, probably mid-fart.

I tell you, all that time on the classroom floor is a killer on your body, and boy did we ever spend a long time on the floor at school. From K to 4, we'd be down there for small group instruction time, reading time, easel time, project time, movie time, auditorium time, song time... any time they needed to call a "time." All that time, I'd just be looking up from under the tables and chairs and wondering how that vantage could've come to dominate my day, and, who stuck that gum up there? Seriously, what were they thinking by subjecting kids to this?

Anyways, you read the title right, so here it goes. Aside from the sheer uncomfortable yoga positioning they were forcing us to do on those rock hard carpets, spending so much time on the floor has its other follies such yoga stuff is known for. It also turns out that when you spend a lot of time hunched over sitting Indian-style, sprawled out, or bent over on a hard rug...etc., any disturbance or show of force when coming to a stand can cause unintentional and unexpected internal "shifts" (especially true after eating anything they served in the cafeteria). This knowledge comes from personal experience.

It was the 4th grade. I was ten. Probably around the same time as my other, far more impressive physical feat (man I was on a roll that year). The floor group thing was over and we were all to go back to sitting in our chairs like people. I forced myself up, and from out of you-know-where (and without even checking with me first), as if just to say "hi!"... out blurped this low and sputter-y "bluRRRp!" Yes. It was a real tumbler rumbler, a real beefer, a real bullfrog croaker, a real butt blunderbuss, a real... you know what? It was just a fart... not very loud, but just loud enough. I just froze. It was a pure "whoa!" kind of moment, and I didn't even know it was me for a half second. I did a mental damage report. All systems were go. Butt was a go. Jeans were a go. Awesomeness was... definitely a go! At least I could be thankful it was deployed from a half stand position because if I had been still firmly planted it probably would've launched me at least an inch into the air. "Houston, we have liftoff." But let's not exaggerate. I'm not taking Apollo 13-style liftoff, I'm talking more like Apollo 13-style explosion. "Houston, we have a problem..."

I wouldn't have thought much about it from there (well, I probably still would have...), but these two girls (who didn't like me much already) were sitting just a few feet behind me on the floor, and I tell you they had front row seats to that performance, both forced to weather the storm. One quickly remarked to the other, "ugh, Mark just farted." Now I didn't know if I should've been ashamed or extremely pleased, but I got to admit that one minute of embarrassment for 16 years of "ah! gotcha!" pride is pretty good in my book, even though it's always more of a deal breaker than an ice breaker. At least it's never a mystery why chicks break up with me. 

The Greatest Scene In 90s Movie History

Sorry, but even the T-Rex breaking free in Jurassic Park can't top this... and it's not all that different anyway. It's still a better love story than Twilight. So beautiful, so universal, so poignant. Finch's struggle is our struggle. We feel it through the screen. Such tension. Such climax. Such absolute relief! It transcends time and place. It is humorous. In fact, from the song "Run, Don't Walk" by the Ventures playing to the tension-inducing, holding-it-in schadenfreude of watching this poor sap, to the inevitable explosive emptying of the chick's bathroom, to the whistling ending, it may be the funniest constructed scene ever in movie history (no joke!). It got my vote for the 1999 Oscar... by far. And still does. 

And yes, I've been there.

Creepy Crawlers

I'm going to echo what others have said about the old Easy Bake Ovens: they were sexist. Against boys! (I know right? But hear me out.) Sure, nothing beats a light bulb when it comes to baking the best brownies, but did those ovens always have to be so rounded, soft, and pink? How come only girls get to do the cooking?? I know many of us would've loved those things (in public no less!) if we didn't feel like we were breaking the law even  just for enjoying their edibles. Make a BOY version of that shit, I thought! ...Which, I can only imagine would've been decked out in sharks, wheels, a revving engine, frosting gun attachments, fart noises from the buttons, blasts of heavy metal to let you know the cookies were done, and it would run on an NES controller. Radical! Ex-cel-lent! Allllll-righty then!

But alas... no such thing existed.

So we got what we got when it came to diahrrea-inducing kids baking equipment, and we still played with it. In fact, many young men are coming forth, like myself, and declaring proudly that, yes, because of the actual Easy Bake machine, baking is cool, even in pink! And it's not that I had anything against the color pink. Heck, in the 90s, pink was unavoidable. It was one of the primary colors of the decade. And I may be an uber dork, but I am also still a dude. I didn't fear pink, it's just I feared the "implication." And the possible allergic reaction. And something about the word "Easy" just wasn't right... perhaps "XTREME!" would've been more tolerable.

But all hope was not lost! The marketers weren't really ignoring those of us with a Y chromosome completely, for another 60's toy was making a comeback in the 90s. And this one they chose to cast in that other hallowed primary color of the 90s: lime green, making it automatically a "boy toy" (the marketing gods have decided!). Easily the boy equivalent to the Easy Bake, it was known as the Creepy Crawler "bug maker (and don't dare call it an oven!)." This thing was one of the coolest gadgets ever because it appealed to two of the things boys love: bugs and goop. You'd pour your goop into the molds, slide them into the "bug maker", wait a while and slide them out, extract them one by one and have yourself... inedible rubber bugs... spiders and centipedes...etc., which you could then stick places to allegedly gross out the girls and annoy stuffy, prim and proper elderly people, which would cause them to get angry for some reason. False advertising! They never looked real enough to actually creep anyone out, and yet the girls still kicked our butts for dropping them in their hair. I'm calling the Better Business Bureau.
 

That prank only worked until even they got into it, because really, who says only boys can be into grody, slimy bugs anyways? And what do boys do whenever girls start invading our turf just like that and start making their own bugs? We say "awesome!" because her spider was huge AND had eight GNARLY legs AND a hundred eyes AND big sharp fangs! You go girl! By then I was already stealing and scarfing down their bulb-leavened cupcakes anyways while they sat waiting to cool, so things evened out in the culinary arena I guess. And I know I can't be the only one to put a few of these in my mouth. Even though they were inedible and they were bugs, they still at least looked like the most delectably chewy candy ever. Of course, whatever was in that "Plasti-Goop" probably couldn't have been healthy, but whatever. It wasn't the worst goop I've tried.

In any case, all it goes to show is that boys like to cook too, and for that there were slimy bugs, but we also like to eat what we cook, and for that, there were pink ovens. In the end, few were grossed out enough to go hungry... until after the cupcakes set in our systems for 30 minutes. THAT was what was scary. 

Snow Writing at the Sled Hill

Let me just stop and say it should be no surprise by now that I am endowed with one of them "things that shall not be named." It's not anything special to be honest... and rather hideous to me (as all of them are)... but it works. (What chicks have down there is sooooo much nicer.) But yes, I do use it. It's a cool gadget to have, I got to admit, even if having one makes you stupid... which it does. And I would know. In fact there are precisely 2655 ways to have fun with it by yourself, and they're all devilish and naughty, especially the... very fun things... but number one has still got to be the most basic. The fact about this boy is that anywhere he went in the great outdoors, whenever he'd come to a high cliff, his first thought always went back to the ole: "This would be a great spot to pee off." 

I know I am not alone in this... at least 50% of the population will concur with this truth invariably. The other half will forever turn me down after reading this. But see, arms and legs just ain't like this appendage, oh no. This one really does have a mind of its own. That may have been why writing your name in the snow with it was always more work than it may have looked... at least to anyone who ever tried it. BUTT then again, if you never tried it, you probably weren't born with that particular drawing tool, and so therefore you never suffered like we guys do. All guys have done this, either to practice our writing skills (or aiming skills) or just out of giddy curiosity and fascination with whatever comes out of us (you know, birth envy and all). But here's the thing, if The Lost World: Jurassic Park taught me anything, it's that when you go off to take a leak in the woods, make sure you don't end up stranded out there by your girl cousin.

It was on an after-Christmas sledding trip and my same-age girl cousin came along with us. She was only related to us by marriage, so I felt safe having the huge crush on her that I had. She and I rode the wussy slope a few times together on the same sled, but I insisted we try the steeper and icier one... the so-called "big kid ride." She refused of course, but I won the day because it was all to easy to push her off and down in the sled by herself. I got a kick out of terrifying her until she landed us both in the ditch at some point. She applied the breaks so hard we skidded on the ice and flopped over sideways into the snow-covered stream bed. Though she had put us down there, I was still the one who had to get the sled out. That sucked because the snow was as hard and slippery as ice. It was ice!

The whole time I became aware I had something to take care of though as I worked to pull it out, and holding it in was not an option anymore! I was even wetting myself a little, which sucked because it was effin cold! So when I'd finished hauling that sled up the hill, I ran off without a word and left her alone there in the white field to die. Though she was curious about what I was doing back there in the trees she didn't wait up for me at the top. She took the sled down again on her own, unbeknownst to me, leaving me stranded. At the time though, I didn't care. I really, desperately, had to squeege. But first, I had to find the "perfect" spot in the snow by the trees (because Marks like me always like to "make their mark"), and then had to coax that turtle out of his shell in the freezing cold for a solid minute (You think it's easy? Try it!). Then finally, finally, I could let it go!

"Come on! Come on! Can't! Hold! It! Stupid zipper! Come on! ...Oh-oh-oh!!!
...ahhhhhhh-ohhhhhh-ahhhh!!... ... ohhhhh yeeeeah.... finally... "

Oh man what a feeling that is! But then I got this "inclination" half way, so it  became a stop-n-go adventure for a good thirty seconds on. It came out all bent, crooked, and disjointed like chicken scratch (because a squirt here and a squirt there does not a straight line make), and I couldn't even work up enough to finish! "M... A ..." Come on, just a little more... just a little more... Nothing doing. Dead stop. Oh well.

I soon abandoned my sloppy "pen...manship" and emerged back into the sun and the blinding snow at the top of the hill only to find my girl cousin waving to me from the bottom, having just enjoyed the steeper "big kid" sled run by herself. I guess it was easier to steer without me, since she'd made it to the bottom this time with no problem. But she wasn't about to leave the sled, much less lift a finger to drag it back up the slope to come back for me. I told her "no way" to helping her, and she never let me back on that thing, even though it was mine. She was carrying that thing all over the place like it was hers, and I don't even remember if I ever got it back. So yeah, I learned why girls don't do any of that stuff in the woods. I don't know what they do.

Ripping the "Big One"

Let's start the new year off with a bit of class. Like most guys, I always had a deep appreciation of fart jokes, fart noises, and farting. Farts are funny as heck and admit it, if you're a guy, there's nothing like the pride of popping off a huge one as loudly as possible and reveling in the after effects (especially when they happened in your brother's face). And when it came to farts, the bigger, louder, longer, and smellier, the better... but any old pop, squeak, squeal, rumble, blast, gurgle, grind, gust, creak, crack, rip, breath, or fluff that could be cut, ripped, blown, snuck, or burped out from down back was enough to make my day. In short, I liked farts.

And why not? I'm a guy, so... amiright? "Ripping a big one," "tearing ass," "rolling down under thunder"... etc., really is a sacred rite of passage for males. It's the closest we ever get to giving birth, so... yeah. It's not just a joke to us, it's in our psyches. You want proof? I cite the 1996 movie Jack as a reference, where the "grownup kid" (Robin Williams I think), when asked for a "manly rip," farts into a tin can and the boys all go throw a lid on it to keep it fresh, pass it around, and then drop a lit match into it to light it on FIRE (the first time I learned this was possible), and it goes Fpoof! Aww-right! That stupid movie taught me many important life lessons I forgot, but that was the takeaway for me: that farts are downright awesome... magical even.... but most importantly... taboo!

Oh yes. Farts are "dirty" and "evil" and "good people don't do them." They were equal to doing things like playing with Ouija boards or finding a girlie stash... things you do in secret, under the cover of darkness (or just under the covers), and only with friends you could be "evil" with. And as such, they were out to pollute our minds and corrupt our ways! Mwahahaaha!! (To be fair though, they are the easiest way to summon some form of demon.) Heck, even just the word was an incantation... "fart"... the funniest most evil word ever. But even despite how acknowledging the very existence of flatulence makes you an evil progeny and a naughty little rebel, for some reason I was still feeling this sense of "shame" and guilt over this natural function of my body. Imagine that! "I can't help it, so what's the big deal?" I'd say, but then I'd have to go back to my double life where I was a "polite boy." And so... I'd usually try to save them for when I was either alone, gaming with a friend, or pinning my brother... for greater effect.

Unfortunately, I was alone when the infamous monster fart I named the "Big One" was born (of course I would've preferred it in my brother's face, but no such luck that time). And yes, I named my farts. "Big One," "Gigantor," "Uh-oh!"...etc. I was 10 at the time, and one day for some reason saw me crippled with abundant gas, so I decided to have that terminated. I was in the basement when it hit me, either coming in from the yard or going out (I can't remember which) and decided to get it over with right then and there where no one would see and hear, and where the aftermath would be least hazardous to innocent bystanders minutes or even hours later.

Your reaction to this post.

Here's how it went down. The urge came upon me, freezing me in my tracks as they sometimes will. I stopped what I was doing, stood still, and assessed whether I could exercise the demon or if I'd need to run to the bathroom fast. Determining it to be releasable on the spot, I applied force as usual, and... and... ka-BOOM! There it was. This super loud dozy suddenly dislodged and came blaring out all at once! It started in a titanic blast like lower pitch roar, then built speed and went off like a chainsaw, and ground to a slow finish. Brrpfannerrpff! It was a huge fart, perhaps the biggest ever (I'd like to think so). After that I took a breath, straightened up, and sighed a very satisfied sigh of relief. My bloating was gone! Hooray! And to my surprise, though it had been a beast on exit, there was very little bite. This was a de-fanged fart, for there wasn't much of a smell, thank goodness! But I was satisfied enough to make a mental note of the event... which I've obviously thought important enough to cherish all these years.

Even though there wasn't much smell to it, I did close the basement doors on my way out and just walked away whistling. Yes soon after that my mom passed through there on her way out to the backyard, so once again, sorry mom, your oldest son was just experiencing his coming of age and the joy of giving birth all rolled into one!

Anyway, though glad to be rid of it, I was moved to see it go, even though I knew there'd always be more where it came from. And there were, and are, but few have been as awesome. My pants must've fit a little better that day. And as our farting hero "Jack" so well put it before dropping one so bad it made another kid faint when he pealed back the lid: "Out demon spirit!" Maybe I've matured somewhat, but I've outgrown nothing.

Happy New Year!

Blowing Smoke

Yes it was possible to get away with smoking when I was a kid, but only in the winter. All you needed to do was raise your ring and index fingers to your lips as if you were holding a cigarette, or a stick or pencil likewise, and then blow a long breath straight as an arrow into the air. A few puffs and you were indeed smoking... and only the weirdos ever got hooked on it. I hear it's still legal in some parts.

Of course it didn't always have to be cigarette smoke. One prance around the backyard in the winter time could have me thinking I was fire-breathing dragon or steam train in one of those make-believe movies I'd direct in my head. And it wasn't just the smoke from within. We also used to run through the car exhaust as the car warmed up, busting its plumes to pieces with chops and stomps or even playing "smoke signals" in it until we were told to stop. The bus either came while we were brushing our teeth or after twenty minutes of waiting around in the driveway, so we had plenty of time to be breathing in all those fumes before school (which probably explains a lot).

You know we're in a special zone when "playing with auto exhaust" counts as a idyllic childhood memory for me. BUTT... let's probe this even further.

Here's a question my inquisitive 8 year old mind never ceased to ponder: If warm things steam in the winter, like breath and car exhaust, why not farts? I wanted to see steam shoot out back there on a cold day, but try as I might, it never worked. Why don't we give off exhaust smoke from our tail pipes like cars? It seems like it'd be helpful thing to have in the winter time, but then any fart super power would've been decent to the 8-year-old me. How about farting lasers, or heat rays, nuclear blasts, or even just fart sonar? What about being able to unleash a smell that is literally toxic? The possibilities are endless!

But the 8yo Me digresses.

"Ink, Stink, Purple Dink, Poop, Fart, Out!"

If you asked me what my favorite music was when I was 8 years old, I probably would have said "Jurassic Park music" (because that was my answer once). But if you had sung the first line of any naughty, dirty, schoolyard song, I would have been able to sing the rest right back to you. I memorized this stuff on the long bus rides home from school, as the girls clapped hands and rhymed them off one after another. Everything from the bizarre "Miss Mary Mack" to the barely-acceptable "Mary Had a Steamboat"  got drilled into my not-so-innocent head.

How this stuff spread all over the country in the decades prior to the internet just goes to show the incredible persistance of kids' appreciation for all that is mucky, yucky, perverse, and anything else they can get away with.

Mary had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell;
Mary went to Heaven, the steamboat went to…
HELLo operator, just give me number nine;
And if you disconnect me, I’ll chop off your…
BEHIND the ‘frigerator, there was a pice of glass.
Mary sat upon it and cut her little… 
ASSK me no more questions, I’ll tell you no more lies:
The boys are in the bathroom, pulling down their…
FLIES are in the kitchen, bees are in the park,
Mary and the principal are [kissing]* in the dark!

*(the word wasn't always "kissing"...)

Of course the girls were smart enough to not sing the really dirty ones full of sex and bodily functions in the proximity of adults...and of course we boys weren't. It was no surprise then why the teacher suggested "one potato, two potato" instead when my friends mentioned to her that "Ink, Stink, Purple dink, Poop, Fart, Out!" was our way of calling each other "out" for a game at recess. And you can imagine that "Man from Nantucket," "Magical Fruit," and whatever incarnation of the "Diarrhea Song" you prefer also factored in, along with my specialty--the ones full of gore and violence: ("Burning of the School" sung to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," or anything involving peer torture or the death of Barney.

Glory, glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I hid behind the door with a loaded .44
And my teacher don't teach no more.

Joy to the World, Josh is dead.
We bar-be-cued his head!
What happened to the body?
We flushed it down the potty!
And round and round it goes!

(^That one went out to a kid my friend and I particularly didn't like... named Josh!)

And just to rub in the fact that girls were more subtle with these songs, I distinctly remember a girl who teased us with "My My Mother, Your Mother", which includes the famous line, "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to college to get more knowledge." Not one to be put down by a girl, my friend chimed in, "Boys go to Mars to get more candy bars!" It was an ingenious comeback, but it was short lived, and she quickly shot back something about how "boys go to Venus to get a bigger..." [ahem!]. That's when we knew we were outwitted (in more ways than one). Only then did we know shame.

(For more fun songs, visit Milkmilklemonade.com)

Cool Kids Wear Flannel

Flannel was a way of life in my formative years. If you weren't wearing your plaid shirt, unbuttoned and loose, hanging over a white tee-shirt, supported by blue jeans and red chucks, you simply weren't cool enough to be taken seriously. I kid you not. It was a white-trash trifecta of coolness, and gave the impression you could crush a beer can with the best of them. It was the natural evolution of grunge rock perhaps, only on the third grade level.

Well, as with most cool things, I was never wearing flannel much at the time. I never wore the shirts unbuttoned over that trailer park kid white tee-shirt with the jeans torn up. I wore my sweatshirts and corduroy jeans. I wore my Reebok sneakers (which may or may not have lit up with flashing lights in the heel). I wore my hair straight and not disheveled. I had these thin circular glasses propped on my face. I bathed once and a while. Given all these facts, you can probably guess that I wasn't one of the cool kids in the mid-90s, but I tried obsessively to get into that inner circle. And gentlemen, I may have made it further towards acceptance by the flannel jerks than any dork ever has.

Here is my tragic story of profound heroism, and how it all went so wrong. To this day, flannel brings back memories of desperation and ambition gone awry. Of me sitting with my friend Nick behind a divider wall in the classroom, sitting in those little yellow plastic chairs at eight years old, him teaching me how to burp on command of course. It was school after all, and if we were supposed to be learning how to read dumb Little Bo Peep stories about little girly girlies getting all up in a whirly whirly over who-gives-a-CRAP?!, we figured we might as well be learning how to do something useful. See, burping is all in the way you turn your neck...

Anyways, there was this other boy I knew... and yes, he too could burp like a champ, really low pitched and loud, which is a very important... So anyways! He was awesome for a lot of other reasons: stone washed jeans, flannel shirt unbuttoned, white T-shirt, shades. The whole nine yards. Did I want to be him? Of course. Since that wasn't possible, suffice it to say I wanted to be cool like him. He had this gang of other third grade Cobain disciples, and I remember desperately wanting admittance into such an esteemed sanctum. I was so desperate in fact, I would've done anything. I would've uttered every swear word in existence with perfect pronunciation to be in the group. I would've climbed the tire castle on the playground to the top just to see how far I could launch spit out of my body to be in the group. I would've huffed the inside of this kid's Chuck's sneakers and held it like a bong hit for ten seconds three times over... to be in the group. And I mean, three really long huffs (I mean, drags) on his really, really, really rancid, festering, nasty, sweaty, intoxicating, hallucinogenic, delirium inducing, vomit producing, radioactively-smelly sneakers!. I would've taken twenty rock-thrown nutshots up against the brick wall in back of the school... without flinching (or puking!)... to be in the group. I would've poked my hand with a pen tip to the point of drawing blood... to be in the group.

And I know I would've... because I actually DID do all those things just to get these jerks to like me, and of course they actually thought it was the damn-dern funniest thing they'd ever seen, but trust me, this stuff gets real when you're a kid. Becoming "cool" in elementary school is literally life or death. I would've died to get "in" on whatever the hell they were actually doing, and all it probably was was just...I dunno, hanging out by the swing set? Shooting the shit? Being jerks? But no matter. It wasn't about doing all that stuff, it was about doing all that stuff with people who think you're cool. That's the point. Getting to do literally anything "along with them" was that freakin' important to me!

So no word of a lie, I passed through their rigorous series of harsh, painful, smelly, and often humiliating rituals and rites just to be counted among them. I hopped on every tire circling the playground at school without falling off once. I made a complete swing on the ropes and walked up the slippery metal slide. I climbed to the top of the tire pyramid on that playground. I wore shirts that, while not flannel, could be unbuttoned to expose that ever-necessary trailer park pit-stained tee-shirt. I attempted to burp the alphabet (only got to the G, I think). Hell, I let them poke my hand with a pen until blood was drawn! I was not afraid. Give me "cool kid status" or give me death!! And you know what, as crazy as it sounds... it actually worked.

At the end of it all, after all the degrading, demoralizing, humiliating, painful, injurious, testicle imploding, burp reverberating, macho nacho-ness abounding, they were finally proud to call me one of them. They let me sit at their lunch table. They let me hang out with them at recess. I'd finally made it. I was one of the club. I was cool. I had every protection they could afford. There was no more teasing. An official proclamation went out to all the other cool boys. I was part of the wolf pack. It was probably the greatest achievement of my life (especially considering the last 20 years...). And so, that's when I lost it!

It turns out that cool kids are so "cool" they don't have to go announce to the teacher what they were put through to order to become cool. One whiff of that and she came down stern on the whole crew, all the boys who I'd so conveniently named by name, and that was that. "Cool kids don't rat," they said afterwords, and then there was nothing but hostility for the rest of the year. Oh well. As Bob Dylan once said, "Life is bad, life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must." I quickly went back to combing my hair and wearing sweatshirts. That was a must.

The moral of the story is, "90s kids man... 90s kids."