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Second Floor: Lingerie, Women’s Shoes, and — Oh My God, Who Did That?!

I like to think of myself as adventurous. I’m always up for a challenge, and willing to walk just a few steps on the wild side. Why, when I was looking for a job a few months back, my ‘career counselor’ even called me a ‘risk-taker’.

(Which is probably not the best possible way for the person who’s helping you to find employment to think of you, but there it is. Once it was said, she couldn’t very well take it back. Of course, she could have refrained from feeding me job postings for places looking for taxi drivers and firemen and elephant waste disposal technicians.

Not to mention the ones advertising for ‘condom testers’. I thought that one might have a few perks, but no. Turns out they weren’t terribly specific about how we’d be testing the things, or in fact whether we’d be the ones actually wearing the condoms, either. On the bright side, I had no idea that I could hit a ‘high C’ like that. Maybe I have a future in opera. A painful, teary-eyed, exhausted future. Eek.)

All right, what was I saying again? Got sidetracked again. Something about taking risks, right?

Good. Let’s go with that, and just pretend that last set of parentheses never happened, shall we? Repeat after me, folks: What was said in a tangent stays in the tangent. Okay, then — moving on.

Seriously, I’m not afraid to get out there and put myself on the line once in a while to see where I stand. I’ve been doing standup comedy for several months now — that’s a pretty big risk right there.

(Especially because I don’t like tomatoes to begin with. So besides all the booing and groaning, when the audience members actually start lobbing rotten ‘maters at my head, it’s a lot worse than it might be for most people. Though I hear it’s good for my hair. Or for getting skunk spray off of me, or taking out peanut butter stains, or some nonsense like that. There’s a silver lining in there somewhere, goddammit!)

But my reckless abandon for life, limb, and any shred of self-esteem doesn’t end there, folks. Oh, no — not by a longshot. I’ve also acted — in community theater and at college — and done my fair share of public speaking, too, at meetings and conferences.

If that doesn’t convince you, then you should also know that I’ve been skydiving. Twice, even. I gamble from time to time, too. I’ve run with scissors. I’ve even — and please, hold your astonished gasps until the end of the sentence, folks — I’ve even removed the ‘Do Not Remove’ tag from our bed’s mattress. Does my madness know no bounds?

And if you’re still not on board here, then I’ll bring out the big one: I have, occasionally — no, no, if I’m being truly honest, I should say often — I’ve often engaged in sex without a condom. Really.

Of course, most of those times were sex without any other people involved, too, I guess, so I don’t know whether that counts. But it sure feels like I’m living on the edge, by cracky!

(God, that was embarrassing. And it’s not even in an aside, where I could sweep it under the rug, or hide it in a basement, or catch it in a tissue, or — what? Too much detail? Yeah. I think you’re right. Let’s never speak of this again, how’s that sound?)

(Jeez, if I keep this up, we’ll have no subjects left to discuss. I should probably keep that in mind before inducing screaming willy nightmares in my good readers’ minds, eh? Well, you live and learn, I suppose. Next topic!)

Okay, so anyway, I’m not trying to impress you with my wanton acts of disregard to my own personal safety and self-image. Nor am I particularly interested in calling attention to what may well be desperate cries for… well, for attention, I imagine. So maybe it’s something I want to call attention to, after all. I don’t have time to try to tease apart what the subconscious layers of my mind are trying to accomplish with this shit. It’s all just an enigma. An enigma, wrapped in a conundrum, and slathered in mystery sauce. With jimmies. And maybe some M&Ms. I’m not sure.

But the point is — or was, several paragraphs ago — that I don’t mind a fair amount of risk in my ‘life portfolio’. There aren’t a lot of things that I’m afraid to say, or do, or cram into places that have no business getting things crammed into them. But I have my limits, and I realized just today what one of them is. It’s a risk that’s so great, with a downside so heinous, that I simply am not willing to do the deed, no matter how great a potential reward there seems to be.

That’s right, folks — I simply refuse to fart in an elevator.

Now, maybe there are some of you out there who’ll take the plunge into the murky waters of between-floor flatulence. Perhaps you’ve danced with the devil that is the ‘going down pootie’ and lived to tell the tale. And maybe — just one more, I promise — you’ve secretly floated air biscuits in your Otis and gotten away with it. If so, I say, ‘Good for you‘. More power to you. Rock on. And just for the record, no, I don’t want, under any circumstances, to share space with you in any sort of confined quarters. If you’ll fart on an elevator, there’s no telling what you’d do in a car, or a tent, or a phone booth. Stay the hell away from me, you stinky freak!

I have to admit, though, that I, too, have felt the powerful allure of the surreptitious elevator valve release. Especially when you’re alone in there — nobody’s looking, nobody’s smelling, no one would ever know, right? You could let just a little teeny squeaker of a fart out, and no one’s around to be the wiser. Or nauseateder, for that matter. Hell, if you wanted to, you could just let loose altogether, and run back and forth in there, motorboating your way from one side of the car to the other. And back again, if you’ve got the sphinctoral stamina to pull it off. And if you’re in there by yourself, who cares, right? It’s like passing gas in a broom closet — no biggie.

Except it is a biggie, of course. A very big biggie, indeed. Because you know — in that shriveled, little, cynical heart of yours, you just know — that as soon as you let one rip within the friendly confines of your own private elevator, the mother-bitchin’ thing is gonna ‘ding‘ at the next floor, and a whole frigging truckload of your friends, coworkers, bosses, family members, and famous hot celebrities are going to pile in there with you. And on the way through the door, they’re gonna sniff. And they’re gonna say to themselves, ‘Hmmm. I’ve been standing with all of these people in the hallway, and the hallway sure as hell didn’t smell like this. And there’s only one person on this elevator. Again, I say, hmmm.‘

And, they’re gonna know. They’ll put two and two together — well, okay, the celebrities might not manage it, and maybe some of your friends aren’t so bright, either, but enough people will get the idea and pass it along that you are the vile, rank, foul-smelling assbasket who lost control and made a gassy poo-poo in the tiny little space now shared by all. And some of those people are going to be riding that elevator for a lot of floors. And if you’re one of those people, then you’re gonna be enduring some very dirty looks and uncomfortable silences for quite a long time.

And that’s if you’re lucky. Just pray you don’t get one of those outgoing, juveline assholes who thinks it’s okay to discuss the details of your flatulence amid an elevatorful of people. Folks, please — crucify me, burn me at the stake, or boil me in oil, but do not, ever, under any circumstances, attempt to discuss any sort of recent bowel movement of mine in the presence of innocent bystanders.Because only one of us is coming out of that little discussion alive, you understand? It might be me, and it might be you, but somebody is gonna die, if you insist on going down that road. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, that’s my story for the day. I don’t know whether it’s helped you at all, but I found it very interesting to see exactly where one of my personal boundaries lies. I’ll have to be on the lookout for other Things That Must Never Be Done™. In the meantime, I hope you folks will give this subject some thought, and sincerely wish that you’ll come to the same conclusions I have. There’s just no place in this world for elevator flatulence, period. That’s just the way it has to be.

And if you feel differently… well, again, let’s just say that I won’t be offering you a ride in my car any time soon, or suggesting that we mug for pics in a photo booth together. I don’t know quite what the hell would induce you to ‘let loose with the ass juice’ in that kind of situation, but I’m certain I don’t want to be there when it happens. This time, you’re on your own, pally. Just be sure to wipe when you’re done. Sicko.