One thing is for certain: mothers’ group is a helluva lot more fun when your kids aren’t actually there.
And just last week, I found myself in that extremely happy situation. My husband picked my kids up from mothers’ group and took them home to bed, thus leaving me to sit in the kitchen and talk shit and drink piss with an equally child-free The Mild-Mannered Lawyer while everyone else around us was still wrangling their kids. And it wasn’t even my birthday.
A few glasses of cheap fizz under our belts, The MML decided to be quite frank with me about my blog. I call this kind of thing “Champagne Honesty”.
“You know I enjoy your blog and blah blah blah,” the MML started off. “There’s just one thing that makes uncomfortable reading for me… and that’s you farting.”
I must have shown my surprise at this revelation, because she went on to explain herself: “The kids farting is okay. Your husband farting? That’s okay, too. Vomit, menstrual blood, poo is fine, all fine. But you? You don’t fart.”
Now, interestingly enough, I have a secret theory about snot and farts: I think that humans have a primal urge to eat their own snot and to smell their own farts under the bedclothes. Both acts are kind of like a “state of the union” health check, a way of monitoring our own well-being. Also, my farts smell great.
Anyway, I chose that moment to share my theory with the MML. She all but put her hands over her ears and said “Lah-lah-lah-lah-lah!”
Another friend MGK wandered over. “Catch this,” I said. “MML has drawn a line for my blog. Apparently, I’m not allowed to mention the fact that I fart. She wants my blog to be an NDM Fart-Free Zone.”
MGK also looked surprised, “What about all those references to menstrual blood?”
“Nope, we’ve already covered that,” I said. “She’s given me the green light for as many silent red ninja references as I damn well please. But I’m not allowed to mention the fact that I fart again. Ever.”
Since it was obvious that even me talking about Not Farting was making the MML uncomfortable, we started talking about TV series “The Wire” instead. And what was that saying again about “loose lips sink ships and reveal TV plots”? Before we both knew it, the MML had accidentally revealed a plot development that I was only two episodes away from finding out in my own good time.
Now to be fair: I was only up to the end of Series 2 and there are three more series to go. And her information was only about one character in one of the many intricate threads of plot. HOWEVER, I was pretty certain that she had just ruined the whole show for me forever. FOREVER. It was like the time I didn’t close the Love Bus’s sliding door properly at the petrol station on our drive home from holiday and my husband had told me – in no uncertain terms – that I’d ruined the whole holiday. Thanks to the MML, “The Wire” was now dead to me.
Embarrassed by her gaffe, the MML tried to divert my attention to a small blob of yoghurt on the bench. But my wrath had already been kindled.
“Look [MML]!” I shouted at her. “I’m farting! Right now! There’s follow-through and EVERYTHING! Look! PTthhthhththththththhththththhth!”
And indeed, MML, even as I write this, I am still upset. And I am still farting. What’s more, I am farting in the general direction of your house. And I will continue to fart- and to advertise the fact that I am farting – whenever I pass you or anyone related to you. You have been warned.
Not Drowning, Mothering. 