Potty Humor - Emily Post, do not read.

Today I was in Walgreens when I happened upon a young, in-love slobbering-all-over-their shoes high school couple admiring the hair products (which, if their hair was any indication, they were not lacking).  All of the sudden I heard a loud, horrible act of flatulation.  As I stood there silently dry-heaving it came to my realization that it was actually the girl who had done it, and was quite proud of herself.  I even saw a high-five pass between the couple.
I must be a prude.
Don't get me wrong, I've been surrounded by the passing of gas my whole life.  I've just never "took" to it I guess.  In fact, I can't even get myself to type out the word in this post.  FAR....see I can't do it.
I grew up in a family with three brothers.  As the lonely female presence under the age of 25 I was on my own in many ways.  Having three brothers who viewed flatulation as a competitive sport didn't help either.  I tried to be an example for them.  At one time I even convinced my brothers that I could count on two hands the number of times I had ever done it in my entire life.  As we washed dishes I let one slip and stated matter-of-factly, "Welp, that's number 9".  I had them going for a good ten years before they realized that maybe it wasn't the whole truth.
My very first high school boyfriend was two years older than me and was known for doing it in classrooms to get a laugh.  He never did it in front of me, but it only lasted about a month (our relationship - not his gas) and I was continuously bombarded by people in his classes with "funny" stories.  When I ended it I couldn't tell him it was because of his gas, so I made up some other lame excuse that he resented me for for years to come.
One time in high school I was dating a boy from a different school and he was introducing me to one of his best friends.  During our conversation in a quiet hallway outside of the auditorium my shoe made some horrifically realistic tooting sound.  I tried desperately (desperately I tell you!) to not only convince them it was my shoe, but to reinvent the sound that was so realistic in the first place.  His friend just continued to make fun of me while I died of humiliation and wanted to throw up.  (Some people faint from embarrassment. I choose the much more lady-like approach of puking my guts out.)
I actually can say with all honesty that I never did it in front of Dustin the entire time we were dating and engaged.  Don't get me wrong...there was plenty of it going on the longer we dated - just not from my end.  One time one of my friends convinced me that if he really respected me he wouldn't do it in front of me.  So I told him that, and he really tried...I truly believe that. 
It wasn't until four days after our honeymoon as we were moving into our new house that I let my guard down.  I wanted to hang a plant from the ceiling in our kitchen and needed Dustin to steady the chair.  As I was stretching up to hang up the plant and Dustin's face was conveniently at bum-level, one delicate little one slipped out and my husband went into shock.  Needless to say he let go of the chair.  He went through the seven stages of your-perfect-wife-just-did-it-for-the-first-time....including shock, denial, mourning, confusion, realization, snickering, and then full-on rolling-on-the-floor laughter.  After my initial reaction of devistation I realized just how funny it was and found a way to laugh at it myself.   I mean think about it....here I had held out for so long.  Then the minute I have him wrangled in and tied down......it's clever is what it is.
And now I've come full circle.  I'm again surrounded by three boys that think of it as a competitive sport (Miles is winning).  I hope they never do it excessively in public, or high-five over it in the presence of others.  I hope they realize that people really do remember who did it every day to get a laugh in Mrs. Steck's social studies class in third grade, and that it may affect their dating lives later on.
I promised myself that I wouldn't laugh when they did it, and that I would teach them to politely say "excuse me"  and move on.  But let's be real.  Life is often about learning to laugh at yourself. In the  meantime I've learned that it really is a tiny bit funny....and if you can't laugh at a little bit of flatulation, then what can you laugh at?