Off gassing

It's a full on day of rain outside. The backyard is a soup of ice and slush. The sidewalks are minefields of thawed poop. The parks are slime, goop and crud. I opt to spend the day inside. I'm on the computer. Rocky is beside me, sleeping, dream kicking and farting.

Rocky farts a lot these days. No manners left. It's like he doesn't care anymore. Sometimes Elizabeth and I will be watching a movie and one of us will get a waft and try to fan it away, to no avail of course. It's like trying to fan away mustard gas. You can't fan away that which is omnipresent.

"Put the blanket over him," Elizabeth says.

I put the blanket on him, double it up even, a futile attempt to keep the gases contained.

"You have to tuck it in around his ass," she says.

It's the Dutch oven strategy but the blanket is too porous and can't hold back the inevitable. We wait. We know it will come.

First, there's just a hint of it and you think maybe it won't be so bad. But hope is soon dashed and if farts could sing, we'd have a hallelujah choir in our living room. Elizabeth and I furiously try to wave the vapours away. Elizabeth pulls her sweater up over her nose. It's the gas mask strategy which we both know doesn't work but you have to try, right?

I'm not sure if we just build up a tolerance or the odor actually dissipates but after a few minutes, we breathe easy again. We relax, fall back into the movie, forget about the stink grenade lying beside us.

And then, "Phfft."