Back in the good old days, when I had my first job but no money, my girlfriend and I would go camping for a holiday. This was England, where camping meant a real tent, not a half scale replica of your house, on wheels, with electricity and air conditioning. We'd pitch the tent in a field and pay for the privilege of sharing fly-infested toilets with the kind of people who think a week in a tent, in a field, in the rain, is a really nice idea.

I could regale you with stories from the campsite, like how our tent was so shit it used to fall over in the wind, or how little sleep you get when you put your tent up over flint-filled earth, but the principle feature of our camping trips was the elegant cuisine. We discovered that if you buy a can of chili and a can of potatoes (yes, you can get them ready-cooked in cans) you have a nutritionally insufficient but filling meal for two, requiring the minimum of preparation when you return from the beach, sunburned and too tired to cook much on the tiny little gas stove. This, combined with burger and chips for lunch, not only provided sustenance - it also locked up your bowels in a such a way as to make trips to the foul, pestilent camp toilet unnecessary.

After a few days of this we decided that a break was in order and we repaired to a local restaurant for a luxurious meal for two. Now this was a small town by the sea, and although the restaurant clearly had delusions of grandeur its menu was pretty basic. Instead of fish and chips they had "fried fish with chopped fried potatoes and a side serving of garden peas" or some shite like that, but when it came it was still fish and chips, only without the paper.

The restaurant was full of freshly scrubbed couples and small families, none of them looking, as we did, as though they'd just been trying to milk an unwilling warthog in a wet field. This was obviously a serious dining event for them, which made the whole charade even more ridiculous to us. We sat at a table for two, me with my back to the rest of the diners, on plain wooden chairs. Now with a few days of camping already behind us the chili had started to take hold, and as we ate I developed a persistent urge to fart. I considered holding it for about three seconds but then decided that I would shift a little on my seat and let it slide out gently so no-one would hear. Unfortunately I completely misjudged the angle of my sphincter to the chair seat and managed to emit a rasping sound that left no conceivable doubt as to its origin.

The gentle murmur and clink of family dining ceased abruptly. I continued to eat my leathery fish as my girlfriend was forced to endure the accusing glances of fellow diners. All it needed was a large neon sign reading "it was him" and the scene would have been complete. We paid up and left, and as we walked back to the tent I endured a lecture on how she couldn't believe what I had done, and how embarassing it had been. And no, she wasn't going to see the funny side of it in a few days.

As I sat in the camp toilet at two in the morning, trying desperately to coax my colon into life, watching warily as spiders fell about my head, I pondered the lesson learned from this experience:

Don't go to cheap restaurants with wooden chairs. In a pricey joint you can fart into the seat cushion and no-one will hear.

Copyright 2007 Edward Bison

About the Author

In case you're wondering, I'm an intelligent, unsophisticated male with a good job and the usual array of unhealthy appetites. I spend significant amounts of my waking hours resisting the temptation to tell people what I really think. I can barely tell red wine from white, so don't bother explaining how the bouquet contains hints of blackberry and cat urine.

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