Writer - William Burleson
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I farted in yoga class today.
I didn’t mean to. Really. While I’m certainly not above letting one go if needed, I wouldn’t purposely pass gas in a room full of people. We are talking a quiet room, too: just a little Tibetan monk music and the male waif instructor calling out the poses. In a way it was his fault; I was just trying to do what he always talked about, to relax and focus on my breath. But as I went from hala-asana (plow pose) into ananda balasana (happy baby pose) I relaxed the wrong muscle, and bam! Rumble in the Bronx. Did anyone notice? Hell, yeah. They couldn’t have missed it. We’re not talking about a little freep. No, this was a sonic boom. The instructor stammered a second, and the little anorexic blond ponytail behind me coughed. What could I do? I just kept on going as if nothing had happened. Heck, I figured with a little luck some people in the room didn’t know who dropped the bomb. If I kept it cool, someone farther away might think the woman next to me, a plump, middle-aged mother in a too-tight spandex, was the one who had eggs an hour before class. I thought about looking at her accusingly, but that only works in elevators. So on I go as if nothing happened into paschimottanasana (the sitting-forward bend), followed by Chakra-asana (the wheel pose). But then, as I’m thinking that in the future I’ll have to take a later class, I heard it. It came from across the room, to the right and a bit in front, say, two o’clock. A nice, little queef. More of a piffle, really. A sweet, little piffle. Unmistakable. I’ve taken, oh, I don’t know, a hundred classes at this health club so far, and I had never heard anyone drop a code blue, a cheek flapper, a fluffy, or even a little peep. There’s a reason why they tell us not to eat for a few hours before practice, and now, not only did I volunteer an air biscuit, but someone else saw fit to join in. Who could it be? Coming out of supta virasana (the reclining hero pose) and into a twist to the right (a twist to the right), I was in perfect position to scope out the area. In the general region, there was a clumsy body builder guy. No, not him. If he let one go, it’d be like Gabriel’s horn. Could it be the old lady in the gold unitard? No, not likely. She looks like she’s never let out even a pip in her whole life. Maybe the fat guy in the tank? Forget about it. If that guy dropped one, it wouldn’t have been a little frit, it would be a sledgehammer and, let’s face it, a real rhino stopper, and nothing had quaffed over yet. And then I saw her. Even in near darkness I could see that she was slender, spiky-haired, wearing a sports bra and sweats, and—just like me—sporting a tribal tattoo on her shoulder. The instructor called for us to move from the right twist to a left twist, but I just stayed twisted right and stared. As she twisted around, now facing me from across the room, our eyes met. She had the eyes of an Egyptian. She smiled at me, and I knew. We both knew. We moved into baddha konasana (the tailor pose), but never took our eyes off each other. After class, we went to the juice bar and got to know each other. Turns out she’s one of those fire poi people who work the boardwalk. Funny, since I like to eat poi. We’re a perfect match. |