The Feortan

Jill’s stomach can tolerate just about anything. It’s her lower GI tract that punishes her when she overdoes. Her whole family was like that, and she’d grown up with so many references to flatulence that she used to think all humor was fart jokes.

Her brother sang “Beans, beans, the musical fruit.” Her father instructed them (for the future) about holding the sheet tight against their necks after letting one rip in bed, to send the effluvium to their mates.

When Jill was 18 she developed odd pains. Suddenly it hurt when she inhaled, between her neck and shoulder or below her ribs. The family doctor guessed it was her gall bladder and put her on a fat-free diet. She lost 20 pounds but not the pains. She was referred to an internist, who ran tests and pronounced her gall bladder perfect. He told her she had a tendency to a spastic colon – when nervous or stressed she was likely to gulp air by yawning or eating too fast, which made for pockets of air in her large intestine, which is another way to describe gas. Extreme enough, the air moved to other parts of her torso, pressing on places that then gave her pain.

Jill resisted the diagnosis at first. The doctor was accusing her of nervousness, and she wouldn’t take that without debate. She told him what a rock she was. How often her friends depended on her to take care of things. “My dear,” the doctor responded with words Jill never forgot, “there’s a difference between nervous and hysterical.”

She learned then not to eat when agitated. Not to drink while eating. To chew her food thoroughly. To pay attention to her own yawns, for she was headed into discomfort when she yawned a lot, packing the long tube with unnecessary air.

Eventually she took up yoga and meditation; she even tried a little bio-feedback. She began a regular exercise program and stuck to it.

She managed her condition so well that she was rarely socially troubled. She had some emphatic nights and mornings at home, but those were known only to her and her dog. She paid attention when she was with anyone and usually she was comfortable.

Usually. Somehow pot de creme and conversation brought on a bloat like she hadn’t suffered in years. Sitting conversing and settling the tab, Jill’s waist grew an inch while her belly distended with gas. She gulped air and then noticed herself gulping, and immediately her thoughts were sardonic: “Oh fine! right! no sooner do Robert and I set ourselves up to try this again than I explode like the marshmallow man. Gad: if he hugs me I’ll release like a blown balloon!”

“I really need to walk,” she said as Robert put his card away

Whatever he intended to say was avalanched by his belch. He burped impulsively, almost passionately, and the hands that were putting his credit card in his wallet were too slow to block it.

The initial look on his face was deerlike panic. Then they both laughed. Standing to leave, guffawing, Jill couldn’t suppress her fart.