Elevator Farting

OK. Seriously, people in Hong Kong, please please PLEASE stop farting in the elevators. This isn’t just for the natives too. I’ve been forced to stew in the butt steam of westerners and expats during far too many ascends/descends. This is just about the lowest form of douchebaggery I have ever encountered. Dutch-ovening dozens of anonymous strangers? That is just sick! And once it is in there it lingers forever. I live on the 23rd floor! I have to stand there for twenty three floors of terrible stranger stink. Can people seriously not control their flatulence long enough to make it through an elevator ride? Perhaps I just never used elevators enough in the US or Australia to realize whether or not elevator farting is endemic to the entire world, but here in Hong Kong I travel between floors as many as 10 to 20 times per day. Maybe I just have bad luck (or stinky people living in my building), but this happens unacceptably frequently for me. It is disgusting, reprehensible, deplorable, and many other words I can’t think of right now.

Perhaps I am too hasty in my objurgation of these olfactory offenders. I almost never fart in public, even in open windy areas. I will hold it in and suffer until I am home and alone. Not just to the elevator, but completely inside my house. Very often as soon as my door closes I go off an elephant sitting on bagpipes. But does the world deserve to be free from my stink? Maybe I’m the weird one and people would find it strange to be so concerned about what other people smell. Perhaps it is time to strike back at a world that keeps farting on me! But even if I wanted to I know that I wouldn’t be able to subjugate strangers to what lingers in my lower intestine. What if an innocent child walked in the elevator after me? How could I live with myself after that?

Believe it or not my fear, or social awareness, or whatever you want to call it, about farting in public didn’t always exist. When I was maybe 4 or 5 years old I remember for the first time in my life feeling empathetic for the people around me after I passed gas. I never realized how unhappy my actions could make people, and I felt terrible. I never wanted to fart again! I still have this feeling to a certain degree and it is something that I think helped shape me as a person. To fart in an elevator is to be completely devoid of compassion. I bet Hitler farted in elevators.

Even if people must fart in public places, there are ways to go about doing it somewhat more appropriately and considerately. Shortly after my epiphany about the harm farting inflicts I asked my father to share his wisdom on the subject and he gave me what might be the greatest advice of all time.

Fart on smokers.

They are already producing an offensive odor, one that will likely cover yours. Elevator farters puff and run making the crime somewhat anonymous, but smokers stand right in front of you and pollute your air. This is your chance for revenge! If enough people fart on the smokers, they will eventually stop smoking in public, reducing the total of offensive smells. If a person eventually quits smoking entirely because people keep farting on them, then you could very well have saved them from lung cancer with your gas.

So there you have it. There are usually people smoking outside of any given building. Go let it out in the nice smoky open air. You’re welcome for the advice.