I’d had major surgery 2 weeks before and there I sat on an airplane headed to Toronto.  Thanks to the advances of medical science I felt great, but I was as swollen as a kitchen sponge and had been pumped full of air that still made me hope someone would poke me with a stick pin for some relief.  Sitting on a plane for two hours didn’t help matters and I was grateful for the temporary wardrobe I’d purchased to get me thru the Jabba-The-Hut phase.  But man!  I missed my ankles!

We were on our way to Toronto to secure an apartment where we’d be living for the next 2-3 years.  My husband and I have always loved the adventure of a move.  We’d started in West Virginia as kids and bounced from there to Orlando, Boston, Baltimore and Atlanta at that point.  I was looking forward to waddling off of this plane, seeing my new home for the first time, and a nice dinner with a glass of wine or three.

We stayed at the Westin on the shores of Lake Ontario in downtown Toronto, the perfect hotel for couples who elect to have dogs in lieu of kids.  When we would return in 2 months with Petey and Tina Belle in hand, they’d have feather beds, ceramic bowls, food and treats awaiting their arrival and subsequent terrorism of the hotel for a solid week.  Little did they know, Petey and Tina Belle would be the least of their concerns.

We found a spectacular apartment just a block north of the Westin and then spent time exploring the city in the snow as best we could with Violet Beauregard in tow.  My feet looked like potatoes from all of the walking, and I’d spend the late evenings with my thankles propped up on pillows in preparation for the next day’s adventures.

All was going according to plan until we made the very bad decision to go for Indian food at a place called Dhaba on King Street.  The food was spectacular and we would return their frequently over the next two years.  But good Indian food is simply irresistible and one must be prepared for the storm that follows.

After dinner we stopped for a glass of wine at the hotel bar before heading upstairs for thankle therapy.  We made our way through the elegant lobby and when we were directly across from the busy lobby desk, something very, very bad happened.

At first neither of us were able to digest the event.  We heard a thunderous roar.  We looked at each other and I saw the horror on my husband’s face when he realized that the earth-shaking sound was coming from my backside.  At that moment, all of that surgical air that had been trapped inside of me for two weeks reared its ugly head forcing its way out and I simply farted like a horse.

My husband asked, haltingly and somewhat dreadfully, “Is…is that….Is that YOU?!?”  And it wasn’t until he’d said the words out loud that I realized that it was most definitely me!  I had just answered the call of the wild Samosa right in the middle of a crowded hotel lobby and I couldn’t keep baby in the corner!  I felt all of my extremities turn cold with fear and humiliation.  But the worst was yet to come.

Only seconds passed when another round of bottom thunder released….and released….and released!   It was a non-stop orchestral phenomenon that went on for a lifetime without taking a breath and I had no control of the players!  My face was frozen in sheer panic.  My husband, on the other hand, came unglued, launching into irrepressible laughter.  And even as terror-stricken as I was, I joined him!

We quickened our pace through the lobby hoping someone else would get the blame, but our conspicuous laughter guaranteed our guilt and my inability to discipline my butt yodeling as I continued to blow smoke while we ran out the front door into the cold night air.  We fell against a pillar, clinging to each other, nearly collapsing in the hilarity, and all the while my back side continued its rectal turbulence.

Some time later my flatulence receded and our madness subsided.  Until we realized that only 2 feet away on the other side of the pillar was the doorman who had continued to greet and hail taxis for guests throughout our assault.

It’s funny how we associate love and marriage with passion and infatuation, when the reality of the matter is that love is more about the freedom to be wholly yourself with another.  It’s about a husband who can still look at his bloated wife who can’t find her ankles and tell her she’s beautiful.  It’s about finding joy in spending your evenings doing something as mundane as watching movies together.  It’s about being content spending time together saying nothing.  And, yes, sometimes it’s even about giving each other a dutch oven and laughing like you’ve never laughed before.