Okay, I think I know why the wife doesn't let me go shopping with her all that much. We were out the other day, her, me, and the kid and we go to the local bookstore. Deciding I'd surprise the wife, I offered to take the kid to the children's department and let her browse on her own. Granted she doesn't really know what I write for the footnote, so it was really kind of shocking to her, I guess. So the kid and I head back to his area, and start looking around. I swear there was one of those "rays of light" things, because right at eye level there was the book I'm going to talk about today: "The Gas We Pass (The Story of Farts)."
You gotta understand I pretty much bought this book for myself.
Couple of odd things about it - the first being it was originally written in Japanese by Shinta Cho (no idea if that's "Mr." Or "Miss") and translated into English. It's also got some kind of weird fixation with elephants (there's a drawing of an elephant's ass on the cover) and there's also the thing that I think is supposed to be a cat that appears a lot inside. I guess that makes sense. It's a book about farts, and I used to have a cat with some nasty, nasty gas. I guess that the Japanese have those too. The other weird thing is that every "fart" drawn in the book pretty much goes "BAROOOOM" or something like that. I guess Shinta never heard of SBDs, huh? Shinta's probably a guy, after looking at that. No woman would ever admit farts can make that noise.
 The book hooks ya right away, with this opening - "When an elephant farts, the farts are really big." Now, I've not read a whole lot of what you'd call "classic" literature, but if Moby Dick had started out like that, I might've gotten further into it before buying the cliff notes. The next page lets us know that people fart too - and SHOWS us with a picture of a guy and a little kid in some kind of big bathtub. The guy and the kid are watching bubbles float up though the water from their respective asses. Wow. I can't really argue with the method of showing us the farts in action, but do we have to see the little kid's tallywhacker? Seriously, I know this was written in Japan, but we usually put people in jail over here for showing us things like that, right?
Book goes on to explain how food is broken down, using some pretty specific anatomy stuff. It even points out the part of the intestine that called the "duodenum" which is a cool word, but maybe a little above a toddler's level (old roommate of mine used to have a lizard called "duodenum." He didn't date much). The hardest part for me getting though this book is every time I see the word "poop," I can here Adam Sandler going "He called the shit 'poop'!" It's hard to keep a straight face, ya know?
Did you know a "healthy" person releases over three ounces of gas in a single fart? Another weird stat in the book that I don't think really is accurate over here. I myself have witnessed many a fart, from short to long, soft to loud. I really think Shinta might be over simplifying things here. I guess you HAVE to since it's a kid's book, but since you're already talking about farting, why not tell 'em the whole spiel?
"If you try too hard to hold your farts…" it could make your stomach hurt or you could get headache. A headache? Whatever, at any rate the book encourages you to let 'em go. No way, even a guy like me knows there's such a thing as "time and place," people. Hanging out with the guys? Sure! Football game? Maybe a little more taboo if you're in public, but what the hell. Being intimate with the wife? BAD time. Very, very bad time. You gotta take one for the team then, and deal with that weird bubbling feeling. I don't care if it does make your head hurt. Wait, that's why her head hurts when I wanna do it? I have to ask her about that.
Anyhow, the book wraps up by talking about what makes farts smell, blah blah blah. I'd pretty much lost interest in the whole thing by that point. One last weird thing, though, is seeing some more of the titles in the series (listed on the last page). I'd heard of the one called "Everyone Poops" (shit/poop!) but did you know your child can also read books such as: "Contemplating Your Bellybutton," "Breasts," or my favorite "All About Scabs." Whoa, I'm going to have to remember to look for some of those next time I end up at the bookstore, which might be a while, because wifey was really weirded out by my getting this book and not reading it to the kid. Oh well. Maybe by the next time, they'll have written a sequel to the farts book that deals with the complex rules of the "Safety / Doorknob" game. That's valuable information the kids are going to need if they're going to survive in college someday.
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