Dear Hillary,
This may sound funny but it isn’t and is really a very embarrassing problem for me, so please don’t use my real name. From my childhood I have suffered from wind for many years. My mother even tells me I had it when a baby. Beer brings it on, so does spicy Thai food, so I steer well clear of them. Living on my own it is not too much of a problem as I can let one rip whenever I like, but now I’ve got a problem. I have just taken up with a lovely young lady and after three months it is obvious that she would be willing to spend some nocturnal quality time with me. I am now really afraid, because my music can happen while I’m asleep and is enough to wake the dead I have been told before. I don’t want her to hear the Charge of the Light Brigade and be put off by the musical items that my bottom can produce, so what do you suggest? I can’t stay awake all night with my legs crossed as well as my fingers.
Flatulent
Dear Flatulent,
You have my sympathies, Flatulent, as opposed to my symphonies. You have several choices, however. You can opt to remain celibate and join the clergy, but your flatulent fits might be misunderstood as music to some cleric’s ears. You could train yourself to be able to play the Charge of the Light Brigade, and make money from your musical bottom. A French entertainer did just that. Called Le Petomane, he was a famous flatulist and he could musically extinguish a candle at one meter, as well as play the sol-fah scale. If you don’t want to come out in the open, then you can have a further look at your diet and avoid milk products and green beans, as well as the beer and som tum, and see if that helps. Have you tried camomile tea before going to bed? If all else fails, you could always get the young lady concerned to ‘burp’ you before settling down for the night. That is what your mother would have done.
