The other day I was sitting in a waiting room when the guy next to me coughs loudly. Nobody in the room gave it a second thought. Then a minute or so later, a little kid who was running around the room suddenly farts and everyone in the room starts that deadly game of fart chicken: who will be the first “adult” to start smiling. You know darn well that everyone was laughing inside their heads. Now there is that awkward couple of seconds where you can hear a pin drop while everyone has on the best poker face waiting for someone to say or do something. And, of course, there wasn’t another kid in the room to start laughing or pointing, thus breaking the tension. By the way, why is it that once one person acknowledges the existence of a fart then everyone in the room is free to react to or comment on the aforementioned fart?
This got me to thinking. Why are some bodily sounds naturally funnier than others? And how did we determine the funny scale for each. Why is a burp sillier than a hiccup, or a sneeze funnier than a cough? And why doesn’t anyone freak out about germs when somebody farts, burps or has the hiccups?
Nobody ever brags to their friends about the huge hiccup they let rip right in the middle of Wal-Mart. And after someone sneezes, nobody says, “Dude, what have you been smelling?”
So, why do farts have all the fun?
Well, as most of you know, I’m just not here to ask the important questions, but to get you the answers you need. I have discovered how to determine the “funny factor” of a bodily sound. It all boils down to 3 things: volume, smell and place.
- Volume is the #1 factor in any bodily sound. A sneeze isn’t that funny. But crank up the volume and add a nose blow at the end: FUNNY. But you simply can’t make an accurate judgment based on volume alone. You have to factor in the volume of the sound vs the relative noise in the surrounding area. For example, a fart at a football game: MILDLY FUNNY. That exact same fart, but in a library: COMEDY GOLD.
- Smell is the #2 factor (sorry for the pun). Smell is always the determining factor in the quality of any fart. Also, really good burps are always the one’s that are not only loud but smell too.
- And finally, Place. This is the one that takes great bodily sounds and makes them historical. Churches, libraries, board meetings and grandma’s dinner table are where legends are born. Also, the number of witnesses to the crime is a major component of Place.
Based on the above criteria, I have determined the “funny factor” of the five major bodily sounds:
#5 The Cough: Although there is the potential for spreading germs, they just lack real substance in all 3 categories.
#4 The Hiccup: They rank ahead of coughs because for some reason people can not stop them selves from applying “Hiccup CPR” to anyone who has the hiccups. Do you have any idea how many methods there are for getting rid of the hiccups? (more on that another day).
#3 The Sneeze: The sneeze is strong in the volume category but just falls short when it comes to smell and place. It is elevated above both the cough and the hiccup because of the unknown snot factor that lurks just under the surface of any sneeze.
#2 The Burp: Rocks the charts on volume and place, but it just can’t keep up on the smell scale with our #1 contender.
#1 The Fart: The fart has the single ability to lead in all 3 categories, hands down. And that is why the loud, smelly fart in the middle of a prayer at church is, and always will be, the funniest bodily sound in the world.
Now that we have cleared that up, the only thing left is know how to handle the next bodily sound situation you find yourself in. My suggestion is that the next time someone sneezes, burps, farts, etc., quickly and decisively call out a score based on the above criteria. Please use a 1 to 10 scale, where 10 is the best and 1 is the worst. Someone sneezes in line at movies, call out “3”. Someone burps at lunch: say, “6”. And if someone farts in a finance meeting, yell “8”. This accomplishes a couple of things. One, it acknowledges the crime thus eliminating that awkward 5 seconds of dead silence and allows everyone to get on with their lives and second, it wraps up the situation with 1 quick answer. The only unwanted side-effect will be the guy who wants to argue with your score. “A 5, that’s BS. It was at least a 7.” Just remember that all judges scores are final.
I hope that, in some small way, this will help you to now live fuller, richer lives.
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