« Back to The Gift of Farting on Command, Part 2

Our table was ostracized from the learning environment in our classroom early on. During group activities we would actively try and cheat by using our books, mostly because the rewards for winning these activities were extra points on tests and quizzes we undoubtedly fucked up on. We were the black sheep of sorts. On one particular day, however, we were being a lot rowdier than usual. Mr. Curtis was in no mood for tomfoolery and he made the unprecedented move of making Casga to move to a desk on the far side of the room to sit by himself.

"They were completely stunned I pulled off a long range shot with such finesse."Casga had racked up two demerits for disrupting class, and the best part was that all along it had been my fault. I had bombed him, locked his desk in place, and pinned his book down on his desk with my hand and the ensuing cat calls had peeved Mr. Curtis beyond belief. I realized that if I could somehow figure out a way to have him disrupt class again, I could really get him in some trouble. A bathroom run would be too obvious, and any manner of paper airplane or projectile would mean instant detention if I were caught.

It was then that a calm began to sweep over me. Like the time I was playing basketball against a friend in my driveway and I began to drive to the hoop. I realized that he was guarding me too well for a lay-up so I jumped past the hoop entirely and threw the ball back over my head, over the backboard and in. I don't know why, but at that moment I had just known I could make the shot, as ridiculous as that might sound.

And at this moment I knew that if I farted with enough tenacity in his direction I could hit Casga from across the room.

I got Wyro and Ignatius' attention by saying, "Watch this." I spread my legs so that my crotch was pointed directly at Knutson and then built up as much pressure as I could muster before letting loose what felt like a particularly nasty gaseous release. Seconds passed, maybe ten of them, before a look of pure horror spread across Casga's face.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!" he screamed.

"DIRECT HIT!" I bellowed back, pumping my fist in the air for added emphasis. The class erupted in laughter and Wyro and Ignatius lost it laughing, completely stunned at the fact I had pulled off a long range shot with such finesse.

"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCUS!" Mr. Curtis exclaimed, with a look of ill temperament on his face.

I looked over at Mr. Curtis with a grin from ear to ear, still wrapped up in the euphoria of my accomplishment. He took out his grade book and emphatically drew three black marks to signify the demerits I had accrued from this little episode. Cracking a slight smile, from what I can only surmise was excess revelry due to the class's ecstatic reaction to the whole incident, he looked at me and said, "Mr. Marine, your name is mud," an old school way of saying you have made a reputation for yourself, if you didn't already know.

I only knew what it meant because it was commonplace in some of the cartoons I watched as a kid, notably Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny episodes. My mind immediately thought of these cartoons, and through this moved succinctly to the type of standard reply most cartoon characters make after being told this.

My particular reply originated from a time at a family reunion when some of my cousins had an egg tossing contest. While trying to catch one of the eggs, a female relative of mine had it break all over her and I got the chance to use the line, "The yolk is on you." Looking back, this was pretty stupid, but for some reason I had ALWAYS wanted to use it on somebody, and when the chance came I didn't falter for a second. It was kind of the same scenario when Mr. Curtis called me mud.

"Mr. Curtis, your name is mud spelled BACKWARDS!" I yelled while standing up in my chair, brandishing the same fist pump I had used to celebrate my long range shot a moment ago. This sent the classroom into hysterics, and even Mr. Curtis lost it. He laughed so hard his face turned red, and then he put his head on his desk and shook it in the manner that only an adult can, feigning hopelessness.

This exchange came to mark the peak of my prowess. While my powers and the onslaught continued throughout the end of the year, nothing ever came close to matching the fervor of that particular day in Latin class.

When I first started writing about my gift, I tried to explain that it wasn't something that I viewed as a curse, simply because of the sheer hedonistic appeal that came with terrorizing my classmates and making the best of my time at school (an otherwise unenjoyable environment). There were drawbacks to my behavior, they just didn't surface until after the fact.

As time went by, people began to associate this episode with me as my predominant identifying trait. Obviously, this was less than desirable, especially with girls. So as the enjoyment of my dominance faded, and my reputation as a gaseous entity spread, the framing of this series of events mentally took a turn from something I treasured to something I came to despise.

This became even worse of a burden to bear when one day I woke up and my abilities were all but gone, disappearing as quickly as they had showed up.

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