My most embarassing moment

There's a restaurant in town called Infinite Soups.  Every day they make some 30 varieties of soup.  Last summer I took this pic at the farmers market of their stand:

"Sold out"

Ah, the irony!

In all honesty, their soups are delicious, and the menu has something for everyone, vegans and carnivores alike.  The only thing they don't have is a place to sit: this is take-n-slurp only with no dining area whatsoever.

This evening their facebook status read: ""Due to some minor gas issues we will be closing at 7pm Tonight."

Being a twelve-year-old at heart, my brain instantly went there.  Haven't we all wished we could leave work early due a a "gas incident"?

In fact, that status reminded me of a "gas incident" I had quite a few years ago.  Because I know it'll make you laugh, I'm going to share it with you.

I'd been dating a guy named Mike.  Mike's was a tight family comprised of his mom, sister, brother-in-law, and the cat Mike and his mom co-owned.  They did virtually everything together and knew everything about one another.  They'd accepted me as one of their own and I really liked them all.

Mike was living with his mother while he saved money to buy a house, which he ultimately did toward the end of our relationship.  One day around Christmas, we all decided to go out to dinner.  We convened at his & his mom's house for pre-dinner drinks.

(Llittle did I realize at that time that they were all raging alcoholics.  My alcohol tolerance, normally pretty low, skyrocketed during this relationship.)

The time for our reservation was approaching and it was time to leave.  The house-leaving routine was always the same: everyone went out to the rambler's garage while Mike checked that doors were locked then set the alarm.

(I later realized, after he bought his own house, that Mike was not only an alcoholic, but one who struggled with OCD.  Part of his unseen house-leaving routine was to check every window 5 times, push the fridge and freezer doors 5 times, turn the oven on/off 5 times, etc.  It was pretty debilitating at times.)

I'd had an intestinal gas bubble building for a while and was rather... ahem... anxious to get outside.  Mike's sister and BIL were going to take their own car, giving me a brief moment to myself in the garage.  The double garage door was wide open and I stood in the entrance and released that painful gas bubble while Mike and his mom closed up the house.

The house locked and the alarm set, Mike and his mother walked into the garage and strode to the car.  Suddenly, Mike stopped dead in his tracks, right where I'd farted. 

He started sniffing.  First a little, then more and more intensely.  I watched, wondering what the hell he was doing.

Then Mike called out to his sis & BIL: "Shannon, John!  Get over here and smell this!"  Their mom got in on the action.  I stood a small distance away and watched helplessly while these four people standing in my ass gas, actively and deeply inhaling it.

I heard Mike say to Shannon, "Smell that stink?  That mechanic didn't fix your catalytic converter after all.  You need to go back and make sure he gets it right.  C'mere... smell it right here!"  The four of them wandered around the garage as my noxious cloud disapated, trying to get one last whiff of it.

Collectively they agreed that Shannon had, indeed, been taken by a greedy mechanic, and that the only course of action was to go read him the riot act. 

Meanwhile, I stood in the frosty evening, silently wondering what to do... besides run far far away.  The group turned and looked at me. 

In that split second I had a decision to make: I could let Shannon spend the money on an unnecesary mechanic visit - it wasn't her catalytic converter but mine that stunk - or I could fess up.  I've always been a terrible liar, besides, the truth of the source of the stench was all but emblazoned across my scarlet cheeks.

I burst out laughing, tears streaming down my bright red face.  Gulping huge breaths of air and fairly choking with laughter, I worked hard to regain my composure.  I finally was able to sputter that they had been inhaling and examining my own exhaust, not a car's.