When I was a kid in junior high I swore a solemn oath to myself that I would never stop finding farts funny.
It wasn't that farts were the creme de la creme of humor. Even in junior high I knew there was funnier stuff than farts. It was just that adults, the responsible ones at least, never allowed themselves to laugh at them. I remember once my mom or dad passed wind while we were all in the car, and neither of them laughed or said anything. They seemed so sad and pathetic to me then, sitting there stiffly in silence, like there wasn't a stink in the air.
What the hell, I thought. Are adults so uptight and humorless that they can't laugh at something as universally funny as farts?
I pretty much held that view from junior high through college and beyond, until a few years ago something happened that changed my mind. I watched my grandfather physically deteriorate slowly from old-age, and then rapidly from cancer. He lost the strength to walk to the bathroom on his own, to lift his pants up so we walked him to the bathroom, we pulled his pants up for him, he lost the ability to sense when he had to go to the bathroom, he wet his pants, so we got him diapers, he lost the ability to remember, so we sat by his hospital bed and reminded him of who we were and who he was.
It made me realize that, as transcendent as the human mind and spirit can be, ultimately none of us escape the indignities of our bodies until the very end. And in some sense,if we accept their inevitability, they cease to be indignities. Sometimes my grandfather was embarrassed, but we were never embarrassed for him or of him. It was just... a part of his life.
Neways. I got to thinking, maybe I was wrong about what transpired in the silence and the foul air between my parents that day in our car. Maybe it wasn't some humorless sense of propriety that kept them from laughing at farts, maybe I just hadn't learned what they'd already known all along: that farts are a part of life.
--Deep Thoughts by Brian
---------------------
Or I guess it could've also been their humorless sense of propriety. We are asian, afterall.
It wasn't that farts were the creme de la creme of humor. Even in junior high I knew there was funnier stuff than farts. It was just that adults, the responsible ones at least, never allowed themselves to laugh at them. I remember once my mom or dad passed wind while we were all in the car, and neither of them laughed or said anything. They seemed so sad and pathetic to me then, sitting there stiffly in silence, like there wasn't a stink in the air.
What the hell, I thought. Are adults so uptight and humorless that they can't laugh at something as universally funny as farts?
I pretty much held that view from junior high through college and beyond, until a few years ago something happened that changed my mind. I watched my grandfather physically deteriorate slowly from old-age, and then rapidly from cancer. He lost the strength to walk to the bathroom on his own, to lift his pants up so we walked him to the bathroom, we pulled his pants up for him, he lost the ability to sense when he had to go to the bathroom, he wet his pants, so we got him diapers, he lost the ability to remember, so we sat by his hospital bed and reminded him of who we were and who he was.
It made me realize that, as transcendent as the human mind and spirit can be, ultimately none of us escape the indignities of our bodies until the very end. And in some sense,if we accept their inevitability, they cease to be indignities. Sometimes my grandfather was embarrassed, but we were never embarrassed for him or of him. It was just... a part of his life.
Neways. I got to thinking, maybe I was wrong about what transpired in the silence and the foul air between my parents that day in our car. Maybe it wasn't some humorless sense of propriety that kept them from laughing at farts, maybe I just hadn't learned what they'd already known all along: that farts are a part of life.
--Deep Thoughts by Brian
---------------------
Or I guess it could've also been their humorless sense of propriety. We are asian, afterall.
posted by Bloo at 1:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home