I hope you're ready for some serious heartache. The following story is true. I've changed a few names and locations to protect people's pride. It's such a weird tale that you'll be loathe to believe it at times, but I assure you it is recounted just as it was told to me by all the people involved. This story is called (in my best redneck accent) 'The Fart What Had Ruined A Man's Life'. This story tells the tale of a guy named Eric. He's from my home town, he grew up about a mile from me. The night I met him I watched him bone a fat ugly girl on the filthy carpet in his shitty apartment.

Cold Blows The Wind - Ween - 4:27

I used to date Eric's sister. The first night I hung out with either of them, she had drug him along to see my old band play at a crumby bar. While I put the mack on the sister, Eric downed a ton of booze and got cozy with an overweight professed lesbian. As the bar closed up it was suggested that we move the party back to his place. After we arrived, records were played, more booze was consumed, and people started pairing up. I went upstairs with the sister for some clumsy makeout. Eric, like a proud Inuit hunter, set to work at bagging the whale. Before long the sister was boozed beyond a virtuous man's comfort threshold. I tucked her in, said my goodbye, and descended the stairs to the kitchen. From the kitchen table in this run-down, split-level shit box of an apartment I had a perfect view of Eric and the pendulous professed lesbian going at it all sloppy drunk style, uncovered, with all the lights on, right there on the horrid brown carpet while a not very good Rolling Stones record skipped away a bit too loudly in the background.

With no back door nor a window large enough to accommodate me I'd have to walk right past them in order to leave. It probably took me ten seconds to make the decision, but it felt much longer. I mustered up my resolve and marched right past the two of them. They barely noticed. Boozey tunnel vision and primal animal humpin' horror show. As I hurried out the front door I managed to squeak out a tortured 'Goodnight'. Over the next few months I got pretty cozy with the sister and ended up spending quite a bit of time with Eric. Along the way I saw him fired from several jobs, kicked out of his apartment, and pissing himself in the middle of the afternoon. When he was sober he was a charming, intelligent, well mannered, and considerate guy... when he was sober. Which wasn't very often. He preferred to spend his time belligerently drunk and engaging in all sorts of regrettable behavior.

Having had my own issues with alcohol, drugs, and recovery some years earlier, I continued to harbor a fascination with the anthropology of addiction. This situation didn't strike me as an instance in which a drunkard simply found himself in many unfortunate situations as a result of having a bit too much booze, this was a classic case of a self destructive individual choosing booze(and its resultant anti-social behavior) as the tool of his own demise. I had seen the family photos at his mother's house. He appeared to have been a fine young man up until a few years prior. What happened? How did he go from smiling young lad to a grody drunk sloppy-humpin' a wasted manatee in front of house guests? A bit of questioning and some liquid bribery led me to the answer.

Eric used to live with a girl named Miranda. They were very much in love. They spent their time making short films, making music, writing, listening to records, and engaging in the sorts of clean cut fun that only folks that are truly off their asses in love can stand to be a part of. All reports state that they were on their way toward marriage. Eric has since claimed this was the happiest time of his life. I later met Miranda and I could see why they had been together. They shared an interesting love of combining portmanteau and spoonerisms into sentences laden with double and triple puns. They also shared an uncanny ability to appear to be reclining no matter what type of chair they might be seated in. They had lived together for a couple of years in a house a bit outside of town before the fateful night that changed their lives. One Evening, in their little house in the country, as Eric was getting out of the shower, he noticed that he had an exceptional amount of gas. Not being one to skip an opportunity for hilarity, he instantly hatched a clever plan for a little practical joke.

As he toweled off, Eric called Miranda to the bathroom and complained of having a zit or ingrown hair on his butt that he couldn't see. He acted concerned and asked Miranda to investigate. She knelt down, got in close, and reported that she saw nothing. He explained that it was square in his crack and as it was really painful, it would be very helpful if she could check it out. She spread his cheeks, leaned in closer, and took an intentional pre-meditated giant wet fart to the face. As Eric Shrieked with laughter, Miranda stormed out the bathroom. By the time He was dry, Miranda was gone entirely. She had grabbed her purse, hopped in the car, and split. she didn't come back that night. She didn't come back the next day. she didn't come back until a few days later while Eric was at work. She packed up most of her stuff and disappeared. She hid out around town for a few weeks, dodging Eric entirely, and soon moved to Southern California.

Eric was shattered. Without the love of a good woman, he soon turned to the booze and went on what appears to be a decade long bender. The people around him continued to start bands, go to school, make movies, and write. Miranda studied hard, got a real estate license, bought a nice house, and went on to be a responsible grown up. After a few years she started coming back to visit occasionally and the two were eventually able to establish a somewhat distant and faltering friendship but she never discussed anything that happened between The Fart and the move to California. I tried to get her side of the story one evening and she shut me down entirely. She knew the condition he was in and I doubt she felt any sort of responsibility for it. A bit of empathy, perhaps some compassion, definitely a touch of disgust.

So, by now you're thinking there must have been something going on before The Fart that primed the pump for her departure. Maybe there was. Eric says there were no problems between the two of them and, like I mentioned earlier, Miranda refused to discuss it. Even if there was a problem between the two of them prior to her departure, it was probably something that two people, in love and on level ground, could work out. Maybe she realized she couldn't spend her life with a malicious face farter. If put in the same situation, who knows how we might react.

So what's the moral of the tale here? Maybe it's the knowledge that for some people it takes the love of another person to make them whole. Maybe it's a lesson in the dangers of betraying a lover's trust. In either case, this Valentine's day, be super cool to your special person or persons. If at all possible, avoid blasting them in the face with a boggy fart. You might just lose them forever and live the rest of your life hungover, sick, weak, and pointlessly humping porkers whilst the world carries on around you.

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