Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit, the More You Eat, the More You FART!---Humor Carnival Post # 2

Growing up, we had one hard and fast rule in my house that I never understood. None of my friends' parents had this rule. And in my mind, there was no good, logical reason for this rule to exist. There was one little word that you could not say in my house. I will give you a hint. It starts with "F." Another hint: it is a four-letter word. No, it is not the mother of all swear words, FUCK (haha, I can say whatever I want, it's my blog and now I'm a GROWN-UP). The word is...

FART.

Just seeing those four little letters in print actually makes me laugh (yes, I am in the sixth grade, thank you very much). But, for even more than it's ability to make people giggle, I love saying this word because for about, oh, I'd say 16 years or so, I WAS NOT ALLOWED to utter it.

What's so bad about the word fart, you may ask? I am not really sure, but my mother was offended by this word something fierce and it was treated as if it were one of the BIG TIME swear words--shit, fuck, piss, ass--you know the ones. If I said it accidentally, I got THE dirtiest look and I was reprimanded to use the phrase, get this--"break wind."

So while all my friends were going around telling fart jokes and enjoying their youth (cause what is a youth without being able to say the word "fart"?), I was destined to humorless jokes that did not involve a child's favorite bodily function. And I was one of those kids that DID NOT break my mother's rules, even when she wasn't around. So even on the playground and in the sanctity of one of my friends' houses where the parents were blissfully unaware of the evils of the word, I would not say it. Yes, I was a goody-two-shoes, people. I've come a long way, eh?

So as soon as I was old enough to realize that 1. The word fart is in no way a swear or cuss word, and 2. My parents really couldn't do anything about it if I said the word anyway, I began to use it. It felt so good to just be able to, well, let it rip--"Man, who FARTED???", "Oh dude, that FART was disgusting!"; and of course, "That fart was SILENT, but DEADLY!"

But I never really got over the hesitance in saying it, and now as an adult I don't say it all that much (I know, it's a shock that I don't go around talking about farts all day). I have even come up with another name for it myself, that I use with my daughter (because the word fart just doesn't seem right for the lovely emissions that come out of my daughter's rear end)--so we call it a POOF. Yes, that's right. My daughter farts and she says "Mommy, I poofed!" and it is the cutest thing on the planet.

So I guess I can forgive my mother for banning the word fart from her household. She just didn't want her perfect little baby girl saying such a harsh, offensive word.

So shit, what the fuck, I guess I understand!