Crack a Rat

Okay, let's go back to a time when we were younger. Nope, not our twenties when we were starting out as adults... and not to our late teens when we were having fun with our best friends forever in high school, and not when we were in middle school and began to discover the thrill of seeing that person that made our heart flutter. Let's go back to a time when our carefree spirit made us laugh and laugh... at what? Well, at a fart. There I said fart... a word that my mother hated and taught us not so say. I'm not sure why she hates that word, but she still does. I guess it rubbed off on me as I really don't like that word either. I choose to say "toot" in our home and try to get the kids to say that too, so I'll refer to the bodily process of passing gas as that. Remember when you were a kid and the most innocent of toots would set a whole group of friends laughing and carrying on? It would happen every time and with no less laughter than the 25th time before that. Fart, toot, barking spider, gas-passing... all words to describe the same thing... in fact one website I found had 261 synonyms for the word.

We were fascinated by toots and we'd invent ways to let them go in fairly creative ways. Everyone has said "pull my finger"... c'mon, you know you have! I've done that as recently as a few months ago with success and a few times since with not so successful results. I'll never forget the first time I did that to my son, Seldon, when he was about six and he just laughed and laughed... the look on his face was priceless and we had quite a dad-son bonding moment over it. I'm pretty sure there is no better way for a man to bond with his son that by sharing a tooting moment. Even my 14 year old daughter, Savanna, still laughs at toots. You'd think she'd be completely grossed out by it, but just last night, I was passing by her room at the end of the day... she was getting ready to settle down... I said good night, turned my bottom side towards her and... well, I tooted at her. Instead of yelling at me to "GO AWAY" or "THAT'S SO GROSS", she started to laugh and laugh. I guess I'm still her hero... a tooting hero, but a hero nonetheless!