The Sound of Christmas...

I was Xmas shopping for a friend of mine about a week before Christmas. I felt like a horrible friend because even though I had thought of several gifts I thought he would like, I could not find a single one of them. I was browsing the Humour section of Borders when an intriguing book caught my eye...The Ultimate Book of Farting by Alec Bromcie. I knew instantly that this would be a fab gift for my friend. This friend is obsessed with farting and fart jokes, and is well known for letting them loose (on demand, if necessary, so what more perfect gift could there be? ;-)

The book is hilarious. First of all, it farts! Oh yes. Each press of the centre lets off four rather wet sounding fart. The book contains a hilarious zodiac for farting, listing what kind of farters people are according to their star sign, recipes for ultimate farting (chilli con carne, yum!), info on the chemical make-up of a fart, trivia, tidbits, you name it. The author has also written The Complete Book of Farting, but nothing was too good for my friend, so I got him The Ultimate Book of Farting.

So I added the book to my pile of other pressies and proceeded to walk around the store, feeling quite pleased with myself. I was wandering around the Reference section, eyeing a very cute guy, when the Farting book started going off on its own. :-( PFFFFFFFFT!!! PFFFFFFT!!! PFFFFFFFT!!!! Four very long, loud, and wet sounding farts inspired by a very spicy meal, no doubt. Needless to say, this did not make me more enticing to the cute guy who looked at me in shock (or was it fear?) An elderly man and woman looked at each other and then moved away from me. I said, "Oh no! It's not me, it's this book!" Yeah. How lame is that? Blaming farting on a book? (Note, the book says that Geminis are infamous for letting one rip and then disappearing quickly in order to let blame fall to the innocent.)

After the book going off on its own a couple more times, I decided I'd had enough humiliation. I headed to the cashier. I presented the pile of purchases to the casher, the farting book at the bottom. PPPFFFFFFFFFFFFT! PFFFFFFFFFFFTTTT! Of course the book goes off again. The cashier's eyes opened wide and I said, "Oh no! It keeps going off!" And she said, "Pardon me?" and I said, "Oh no! Not me! The book!" I pulled out the book from the bottom of the pile to show her and she laughed and said, "Oh yeah! My first week working here, I didn't know about anything and this little old man comes up to me and slides a book in a bag across the counter and says quietly, 'I need to return this book' and I asked why and he said, 'Because it doesn't fart.' So I think this guy is nuts and I am about to call for security when he takes it out of the bag and I see that he's got The Ultimate Book of Farting and the book actually is supposed to fart!"

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Needless to say, my friend loves the gift. But I might have to return the book for another. He says it's stopped farting. :-( I may have accidentally used up all the farts while scaring people at Borders :-(

The Tsunami

As many times as they keep playing the footage of the tsunami hitting different coasts of the affected countries over and over again on the news, it's still so shocking to me. I just keep thinking of all the families out there that don't exist anymore or have been halved or have lost members - it's insane. There's one piece of footage in particular where you see one wave hit and everyone thinks it's kinda funny, like when people at the beach would laugh when the tide starts to come in and think "ooops, gotta get your shoes outta the way so they don't get wet!" And people are laughing and excited or relaxed, having no idea that seconds later they would be drowning. :-(

The numbers of people already dead from the tsunami and the numbers of people who are going to die from water borne disease or starvation - it's astounding. I'm making a donation to the Red Cross, but that amounts to jack shit of what these people really need. It's only the very least of what I can do. I have so much admiration and respect for all those people who are actually over there helping in so many different ways. I really hope all the fund-raising efforts show people being even more generous than expected. The idea of so many more people dying after what's already happened is so scary.

I feel dumb posting my stupid Xmas story tonight, but maybe tomorrow...