Don’t ask me why we even had the stuff in the house…I have no idea. It seems the wife has all kinds of random medications for various random ailments. But, it was there, in the medicine cabinet:

Yes, FLATULEX: an “anti-fart” pill!

You see, I hadn’t slept well the night before, and had a big bowl of Special K, with a banana in it, at around 6 AM. Then, back to sleep for 3 hours. Whatever got brewed up was quite hearty and rich. All day long, I was “flatulating”. And, it didn’t take me long to realize I had a major decision to make; a decision that would test the very core of my belief structure.

The way I broke it down on the chalkboard, I had 3 options:

1. Ride the wave – just enjoy the day, let whatever tsunami was stirring in my intestines just run its course. This option would leave me dropping deadly gas bombs all the way from Hors d’œuvres through desert.
2. Hold on tight – try to hold in the stinky super-nova for 5 hours. I eliminated this one right away as a non-starter. If you told me I had to hold these in while buying a can of Pepsi from a vending machine, I wouldn’t have been sure I could last…so, 5 hours was not an option.
3. Flatulex – The devil, the “anti-fart”…can I really sell my soul?

So, here are the factors that went in to my decision, in no particular order:

• My wife and I didn’t know any of these people very well, and some of them were merely work acquaintances of hers. And, they were all from different cultures. There was 1 North American there (Canadian, so that doesn’t even really count), and one person each from Panama, France, Spain, and China. Had they been family, or long-time friends, I’d have been much more comfortable ruining not only their Thanksgiving, but their entire “holiday season”
• The wife worked all day cooking, and these farts would have made it impossible for any human to enjoy any meal. Even the girls from “2 Girls, 1 Cup” would have fled in horror (unfortunately, they couldn’t make it anyway…cancelled at the last minute)
• These farts (my very own farts) were making me kind of nauseous. And, I was really hungry.

So, out came the Flatulex. I popped it in my mouth. It tasted quite pleasant, which was a nice surprise. I chewed it up, swirled it around, and swallowed it down. About 30 minutes later, the farts were gone. And, 3 days later, I’m still questioning who I really am, deep down inside.