The Wilful Sunflower

Tonight my housemates Meera, Emmy, and I were in the living room. Meera was sitting on the floor doing some work on her laptop which was placed on the coffee table, Emmy was reclining on the couch reading, and I was lying flat on the cold marble floor, also reading. All was extremely quiet.

I felt a fart coming on.

Now, there's no way I know of to hold back a fart; if you have to break wind, you just have to. So I let 'er rip. And then said, "Excuse me."

Nobody reacted. Silence continued to reign.

After about 15 minutes, the same thing happened. Rinse & repeat.

Meera looked up and grinned. "You know, you make it worse when you say 'Excuse me'."

I started laughing. "But that's what we do in my family! We're TAUGHT to say 'Excuse me'! It's politeness!"

"But if you didn't say it, it wouldn't be so bad! Everybody could stay quiet and pretend nothing had happened," Meera replied.

"You mean the protocol in your family is to just keep quiet and pretend nothing happened?" I wheezed, between gasps of laughter. I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my cheeks.

Meera nodded. "Or else we go, 'Ewwww!' and act disgusted."

"What's the protocol in your family?" I asked Emmy. I was still rocking with laughter.

"Umm... I don't know," she said.

"You mean nobody in your family ever farts?"

"Not that I recall."

Which of course sent us into more gales of laughter.

But really -- I always thought that saying "Excuse me" after the deed was the correct protocol for such situations! So this got me wondering -- what is YOUR family's method of dealing with that time when you just have to break wind and can't hold it in a second longer? What did you grow up believing was the proper etiquette in such a case??