The Seven After Dinner Farts

There are exactly seven of them. Who knew, right? But once someone explained them to me, I came up with brief descriptions of each type. You might think that I have an obsession with flatulence, but I don't. It's just that, as many people have said time and again, farts are funny. At times, they're rude and vulgar as well, but we all fart. If you claim that yours don't stink, you're mistaken, or self-deluded. At least I have always given a fair warning before delivering even the tiniest of butt burps.

For your edification, the seven after dinner farts are (in order): fizz, fuzz, fizz/fuzz, foo, tele-foo, tear-ass, and rattler.

Allow me to explain each.

1) Fizz - Tight, compressed but rather distinct and unmistakable fart of relatively brief duration. There are many types of fizz farts, from the light and fluffy, nearly odorless popcorn fart to the particularly malodorous stench wrench. The fabled, useless 'fart in a whirlwind' was definitely a fizz.

2) Fuzz - A bit more fluid than a fizz, it is nevertheless an immediate attention-getter. The gas erupts like a power chord on a distorted rock guitar. Because of the relative wetness of this sort of fart, it is seldom without some bouquet that closely relates to whatever was consumed that lingered long enough in the bowels to generate a quantity of gas. Soup-bean farts are often associated with this category and frequently a fuzz leaves residue.

3) Fizz/fuzz - Rather than being a combination of the two distinct component parts, this fart takes on a nature all of its own. It may sound as an alarm oscillating between the fizz and fuzz sounds or it may be a single burst of consistently blubbering sound, accompanied by the most condensed reek of any fart. These sorts of farts are often associated with the consumption of roughage, such as the raw cabbage in cole slaw along with baked beans and greasy chicken, washed down with a cold diet soda or, even worse, beer. What happens within the bowels of anyone consuming such a volatile mixture is a chain reaction that is something just shy of becoming thermonuclear. American firecracker farts, the loud but brief in duration version of this category occur after picnics, especially on the Fourth of July. In some other countries the fizz/fuzz is considered a weapon of mass destruction and has been banned from public places - even where smoking is permitted, possibly due to the danger of ignition or spontaneous combustion.

4) Foo -  A fart that issues without much of a sound but usually has a stench associated with it. It almost never smells like 'your kind of fart' and has the singular reputation for being the one type that even embarrasses the dealer into a process of immediate denial and rapid assignment of blame to others. This category of fart has become legendary in such phrases as 'whoever first smelt it dealt it' and the proverbial 'silent but deadly' category. Although there is usually no residue, it sometimes prompts the dealer to change underwear - just in case the odor 'lingers in the linen'.

5) Tele-foo - A foo that is erupts in one room but is heard and smelt in another. It is a foo, nevertheless. Depending on the situation, it could be the source of mistaken identity in charging the blame for the foo. Always remember that some farts can penetrate walls or pass through closed doors and windows -and occasionally warp through time and space into the future or the past depending on the direction of the fart, the angular velocity and the alignment of the sun, moon and stars.

6) Tear-ass  -  A self-descriptive and mostly self-explanatory fart. Someone who delivers such a flatulent discharge may, at first, be greatly relived that the pressure on the sphincter is gone. It is the following burning sensation that leads to the unfounded concern that whatever emerged from deep within has also left a trail of blood, as if from a bleeding wound. Despite the name of this category of fart, rarely is there irreparable harm. Gratefully for the rest of us, they are somewhat rare.

7) Rattler - A fart that literally registers on the Richter scale. Not only does this category of fart produce the low rumbling sound associated with natural disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes and drive-by gangsta rap mobiles, it will almost always rattle doors and windows, hence its name. In the most extreme case, it make break glass and cause doors to shake loose from their locks and latches. Fortunately for most people and their property, a rattler is a once or maybe twice in a lifetime achievement.

The longest rattler ever recorded lasted for 25 seconds yet harmed nothing but reputations! Despite the boisterous bravado, rattlers are all about the noise but contain very little in the way of substance. They may wake sleeping dogs, cause cats to take cover under the bed or precipitate small children cowering behind their mothers for protection, but they really are not obnoxiously fragrant as a rule. As warning, many westerners produce rattlers after consuming copious quantities of an Asian delicacy called Kimchee, a tasty staple in the diet of the average Korean produced from raw vegetables to which garlic, red pepper and monosodium glutamate are added then allowed to ferment.

The preceding list may not be all-inclusive of every subcategory of flatulent discharge. It is also possible for individual variation within each category. It was compiled by a group of experts after extensive study in a college fraternity following several weeks consuming campus food and partying to excess every weekend during which much beer and soda were consumed, but no animals were harmed.