Baloop!

Often times I wonder what it would be like to be a really brilliant and celebrated writer. I will sit and wonder for a time if new ideas come to them like a bolt of lightning, waking them up in the middle of the night, or if it's more like an hour glass, filling their brains slowly until they realize they have a new idea. I sit and wonder, and then realize I will never have such ideas, so it doesn't really matter, and return to my bowl of breakfast cereal. At such a time as this, I realize that sometimes it is the old standbys that do us the most good. They are not, for example, going to suddenly turn hostile and steal my wallet. And so, for this entry I will submit myself to using a classic opening line.

Once upon a time, before the fatal events of my becoming an adult, my dad decided that it would be a brilliant idea for us, that is he, my older brother Nigel, and myself go for a little backpacking trip. Backpacking in this case does not refer to packing somebodies back for your trip to the coast, but instead putting all your necessities, namely food, drink, clothes and the like, into a bag which hangs upon your back and walking away from civilization in order to set up a tent and hang out in the wilderness for a piece. This struck Nigel and I as a fantastic plan and we got into the swing of things with great exuberance. Unfortunately, being perhaps half the size I am now, I could not possibly carry all the things I would have liked to have with me. Half my room, in other words, and my dad said no repeatedly to the things which were not absolutely necessary. After a month and a half of planning and packing (you don't know my dad) the set date came and we set off. We did not in fact simply sling the bags over our backs and set off for the wilderness. We had to get in the car and drive for a bit. It is not as easy as it used to be to get away from civilization. After driving for an hour or more, we got out and then began walking away from what was left of civilization. A lake and three miles later we arrived at our campsite. We then proceeded to set up our tent. It grew dark rapidly and we sat contentedly, if not a little loudly, around a campfire. And now comes the time to tell you what I have written this to tell you. Our dad left us at the campsite to go down to the lake and filter us some water. Nigel proceeded to entertain me in the best way he knew how, namely by farting. He cocked his arms, and stuck out his rumpus ready to take aim. At this point many things happened at once. First of all, he did fart, but it did not come out as a normal sounding gas expulsion. If you are unfamiliar with that sound, you can synthesize it by placing your open mouth on a soft part of you arm and blowing as hard as you can. This is known as a Zuber, the synthesizing of a fart noise, often used for entertainment purposes on babies stomachs. Look it up. But to get back to my story, Nigel's fart did not come out this way. It came out sounding exactly like, 'Baloop'. That of course would have been hilarious in itself, but at that exact moment a large group of people-'large' meaning 'many' rather than 'obese'- came around the bend of the trail and into full earshot of his baloop. I held my breath while they passed, and then promptly broke into hysterical laughter. "You balooped at those people!" I gasped between shouts of laughter. I then ran over to where I could see our dad and half whispered, half yelled, "He balooped at those people!" Strangely my dad could not make head or tail of my shouts of Nigel's baloopage, and all the while Nigel kept insisting that he hadn't balooped AT them. Of course he had balooped and they had walked around the bend, but they couldn't have heard him and he didn't in fact baloop AT them. And then we went to bed and slept very soundly. All in all, it was a very successful camping trip.