Land of the Rising Gas
by: Kevin Burns
Few people
stop to think much about it when they fart.
Unless it happens on a crowded elevator,
then everyone thinks about it.
You may not
have pondered the fact that there are over
400 different kinds of gas in one human
fart, and Japanese of course are no
exception. Japanese routinely let them rip
to the tune of 80 million liters of fart gas
every day of the year. I haven't even
included hot air bags like Tokyo Governor
Ishihara either! If all the people in the
world could be synchronized via the internet
to buff on cue, they would emit 4.2 billion
liters of butt gas, and that would fill 3.5
Tokyo Domes. Not a pretty picture I know.
Just think of the Dome's maintenance staff!
I have often
thought that my friend Doug's expellation
were particularly putrid, but no! According
to research, Japanese young women expel
especially smelly ones these days due to
constipation. Half of the young women of
Japan are afflicted. Doctors point to
dieting as the culprit in this case. Dieting
leads to a loss of muscle tissue in general,
and loose stomach muscles in particular,
which in turn leads to constipation, and
farts that would make even Doug blush!
Help you gasp!
I'm dating a Japanese woman, what should I
do? Is there anything that can be done, Key?
Unfortunately, I am at a loss and it isn't
only dieting that make some elevators smell
like Kawasaki. It is also because the
Western diet has found popularity among
Japanese pallets. Simply put, Japanese are
eating more meat.
Indeed, the
fast paced lifestyle of Japan leads to
increased stress, and worsens one's
intestinal condition. Perhaps because of
this busy lifestyle, people don't have as
much time to exercise. Without regular
exercise, we aren't regular, and our bowels
don't move smoothly (extend and shrink
well--as one Tokyo doctor, a proctologist I
presume, was quoted as saying).
One shocking
part of the study revealed that if you try
to prevent a fart, it will actually get you
in more trouble and could affect your love
life! If you refuse to fluff one (as my
Uncle Stan used to say), then the gas is
absorbed into your blood and travels to your
lungs. Then it comes out of your mouth,
smelling just as terrible. Let one rip
before you exchange lips with your special
someone I like to say. It is a shame when
couples break up over mouth farts. It wasn't
that garlic your partner ate the night
before.
This problem
isn't purely a Japanese one of course, it
also takes place in space. After a fatal
accident involving Apollo 1, NASA was forced
to re-evaluate their safety measures. The
accident involved gas and some at NASA
suggested that even one fart might have
caused the calamity. They started their
analysis at that point. Finding that farts
contain methane, they proved that farts can
burn. Herman, my boy scout buddy regularly
proved that on camp outs, but that's another
story.
NASA analyzed
many farts and found that some do not
include methane. It depended on what the
farter had eaten. Eating carbohydrates tends
to produce a methane based fart, while
eating meat or space food that is meat
based, produces an expellation that is
methane free or low in methane. This tends
to cause the fartee (or recipient of the
fart) to do a severe space gag, and possibly
knock one of the controls out of whack. This
of course could lead to a serious accident.
The drawback
to all of these findings was, that low
carbohydrate space food doesn't produce the
dreaded methane fart, but does produce a
fart like Doug's. In space, no one can hear
you fart! But they can sure as hell smell a
fart after some gaseous Neil Armstrong has
had his ration of low carb space food. It
stinks up the whole lunar module man! No
wonder few astronauts ever opted for a
second mission and everyone wanted to go for
a space walk! Japanese astronaut Mamoru
Mouri, who served on the Space Shuttle
remarked that when someone farts in space it
doesn't dissipate, "...it become rump of
gasu traveling through space shuttle.
Sometime it strike fellow astronaut nose.
Honto ni kusai!" (It smells just terrible,")
he related. "It often happen in shuttle, but
feeling is mutual," he finalized.
So there you
have it, let's be careful out there; and as
my father saw on a Scottish grave stone:
"Aire we be,
let wind blow free.
by Kevin Burns
at great personal risk
(Researched by
T. Yamaki under much duress.
*Ms. Yamaki has shown no side effects, so far,
from this research.)
