By contributing writer Jake Sikma

our stomach bubbles and soars. The gurgling may even be audible. The sensation sinks lower, traversing a maze in your lower body. It feels as if a smelly phantom is floating around in your bowels, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. You observe your surroundings, gathering crucial information and analyzing the immediate situation. You try to remember what you have eaten in the last 12 hours. Burritos? Eggs? Anything from Mexico? Chile?

If you happen to be alone or among friends (close friends), you cut loose at your own free will. Your friends criticize you, give you shit, but you tell them your farts have gotten you laid before (they haven't). Things go back to the way they were, only it reeks of Agent Brown.

Sometimes, however, you may find yourself in a car, movie line, elevator, at work, or sitting at the dinner table. Your tail wind is unwelcome at these places, and you immediately become somewhat nervous when the launch countdown begins. Your inner strategist takes over, contemplating the right time, place, and skill with which you will release your flatulent. You may even sweat a little.


Hotboxing isn't always an activity agreed upon by everyone in the box.

The first thoughts screaming through your mind are excuses. “May I be excused?” or, “I have to make an important phone call,” or even bluntly, “Pardon me, but I have to pass gas and would rather not do it in the conference room.” If you're fortunate enough, you will be able to separate yourself from the potential victims around you and honk in solitude. But you may not be so lucky.

You realize you cannot escape the vehicle/meeting/classroom/elevator car/prison cell. Panic, frustration, fear. All of these emotions crowd your mind as you try and concentrate, squirming in your chair, attempting to wrestle the fowl howl within your nether regions into submission. But it is inevitably pushing forth, or more accurately, down. Its decision has been made, and the only thing you can do now is position yourself to best muffle the duck quack-like noise that your body will soon publish. You clinch your ass, lean to one side, perhaps cross your legs, and begin praying to the God of Butt Thunder in hopes that your air biscuit will be quiet and brief. But many are not so lucky.

You release.

The squeak, one of the most fearsome and unforgiving types of cheek flappers to ever slide out one's rear. The tweet lasts for what seems an eternity, giving witnesses time to identify the culprit. Giggles and voices of disgust follow; dirty looks gravitate towards you. They prepare for the collateral damage by pinching their nostrils.

You are ashamed.

Perhaps it is a sonic boom, a lightning crack whose turbulence is only exceeded by its stench. It is the sound of a boulder crushing a piglet. Everyone around leers at you. The professor asks you to leave class and never return; you must drop the course like you dropped your rectal tremor. It doesn't matter that you have loose bowels and can't control your anal volcano. No one cares. It's like being handicapped: you're fucked.

Maybe your beefer is silent, but deadly, like a shit ghost. It takes a few moments after eruption for those around you to realize they’ve been egged. They begin cursing, demanding to find the culprit. You join them, going undercover as a non-loafer, hoping you won't be discovered. You await the hazmat teams and government quarantine.

The most feared butt snort, however, is the dreaded Hershey-squirt. Alone or in public, this stink ripple is the worst of them all, usually accompanied by a wet popping sound, somewhere between the noises of a crushed frog carcass and squirrels fucking. The blat leaves you with diarrhea's younger brother, dripshit, the worst sensation in the world. It's like someone ate their Cocoa Puffs with whole milk, didn't finish, and then threw the soggy leftover cereal in the garbage—only the garbage is your pants.

You sit through the rest of class, tempted to leave for the restroom and wipe off what you can with tissue, but you don't want to bring attention to yourself. You realize the smell will hit soon, and you do not want to identify yourself as the guilty one by waddling to the bathroom. Your butt cheeks might even make a windshield wiper sound as you walk because you just shit yourself wet. Best to wait for the end of class hustle-and-bustle to disguise your squishy pants.

You agonizingly force yourself to wait, squirming in your seat, checking your watch. The poo is getting cold on your gooch. You hope your stink doesn't stank too much to blow your cover and reveal you as the crapper.

Finally, the professor dismisses you, and you stand up only after your classmates have passed in front of you. You walk, trying your best not to look like you’re barbecuing a spare rib in your underwear. No one takes notice. You are in the clear, except for your ass, which is covered in wet shit and starting to chafe.

You leave class, exit the building, and just as you start towards the nearest bathroom, home free, some fat, emo son-of-a-bitch behind you notices the brown stain on the rear of your jeans and calls a goddamn press conference in the middle of campus while pointing at you and laughing, because you have gravy pants.

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