Editor’s Note: Mr. Krider is neither a medical doctor nor a licensed marriage counselor. This list is based solely on his minimal qualifications—that he has both an anus and a wife. He has no other scientific proof to back up his claims of how to fart through 17 years of marriage and get away with it. Now that you have read this warning, proceed with caution (and with some Glade air freshener).
How do you fart through 17 years of marriage and get away with it? Easy! Just follow these simple steps and you, too, can relax your gastrointestinal system and also stay happily married forever.
Farting—otherwise known as gas, butt belch, a message from the interior, sphincter-turbulence, dropping tooters, anal acoustics, backdoor trumpet, one-cheek sneak, or Taco Bell’s revenge—are all terms to describe a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence. People fart; get over it. People get married; get over it. I’m here to tell you how to do both happily and successfully.
Step No. 1: Get a dog.
Dogs are great pets to on which blame flatulence. Everyone knows dogs don’t wipe their butts and thus nobody blinks an eye when they come prancing into the house stinking of poop. You don’t even have to train your dog in order to blame farts on him. All you need to do is drop food under your chair while eating Mexican cuisine for dinner. The dog will always sit underneath your chair (since that’s where the food is) and when the burrito bubbles begin to erupt, the dog gets the blame. This is a foolproof plan.
The only thing you have to do is occasionally make the announcement, “Whew, Rufus, you are ripe tonight! We’ve got to switch your dog food. You’re making my eyes water.”
Pro Tip: The bigger the dog, the more realistic it is on which to blame human flatulence. You can’t poof a burrito bomber and expect anyone to think it came from a Chihuahua.
Step No. 2: Get a hot tub.
Hot tubs are great because they have jets and bubble makers and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets to stir up the water enough to disguise your up-floating fart bubbles. You can freely fart until your butt turns inside out in a hot tub and nobody will ever be the wiser. If you’re feeling a bit gassy, suggest to your wife that the two of you should go hang out in the spa. Then you can let yourself really relax. Listen patiently all about her day while you sit back and enjoy the turbulence.
Pro Tip: Some hot tubs come with scented bubbles, which is another great way to disguise underwater farts. I recommend the cherry flavor.
Step No. 3: Get a loud stereo.
Farts come in two components—sound and smell—so you need to find ways to disguise each. It is true that some varieties of breaking wind only have one component; sound. SBDs (silent but deadlies) can sneak by without noise, while some farts are loud and don’t really pack a pungent punch. These elements all depend on each person’s diet and their rectal circumference (to determine octave and gag factor). But to disguise the sound of a fart it is important to have a great surround sound system with a lot of speakers and a massive bass speaker. When my wife and I are watching 21 Jump Street with Channing Tatum on BluRay, I have the volume way up. My wife is happy because Channing has his shirt off again and I’m happy because I’m farting up a storm and nobody can hear it.
Pro Tip: If you continually rent movies with Channing Tatum, your wife will always overlook a few of your farts.
Step No. 4: Buy scented candles.
Now that you have handled the sound issue, it’s time to attack the stench of death. Good news: women L-O-V-E scented candles. I don’t why, but it is inside their DNA to absolutely love these candles. Great, this is a win-win for men who love to fart. Next holiday buy your wife the nicest scented candles you can find (my wife, whom I love, prefers Gold Canyon). Light those babies up and make the lighting nice and romantic for the Channing Tatum film festival. Everything will smell nice, so you can go ahead and fart up a storm.
Pro Tip: Use a match to light your candles for a two-fold attack against fart smells, as the sulfur dioxide in the match head burns the methane gas in farts (what makes them smell light rotting meat).
Step No. 5: Have kids.
I’m not saying you should have kids so you can blame the farts on them like I told you to blame farts on the dog.
Pro Tip: You actually can blame farts on the kids. In reality, kids help mask your farts because the kids themselves always smell so bad, especially during the diaper years. If you’re in the nursery changing a poopy diaper, go ahead and let your farts roll on out. Nobody is going to think it’s your farts that stink. Everyone will assume it’s the disgusting and gross dirty diaper that is letting out the odor of doom.
Step No. 6: Marry a woman who thinks farts are funny.
Farts are funny. This has actually been scientifically proven. Regardless of the age of a person, or his or her nationality or gender, farts universally make people laugh. As human beings, we just can’t help it. When somebody farts, we all crack a smile. Think I’m wrong about this? Take a look at Adam Sandler’s bank account balance. He made a movie empire with fart jokes. The trick to understanding how to fart for 17 years of marriage and get away with it is to make sure your partner thinks farts are really, really hilarious.
How do you find this out before you ask her to marry you? Ask her if she is an Adam Sandler fan. If she is, marry her, take her to a Mexican restaurant, and then fart in her face. Instead of your new spouse waving her hand in front of her nose and screaming, “Gross, you stink!” she will be laughing hysterically while saying, “Wow, your poopy tunes are a bit rank tonight!” Marital bliss.
Pro Tip: No matter how cool your wife is about farting, NEVER do it in her face.
Rob keeps himself warm every night with a Dutch oven. Contact him through the managing editor at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 2-9, 2014.