You Houstonians know that downtown Houston has a tunnel system that goes from building to building. It's about the most disgusting place around, if you ask me, if in terms of smells alone. You've got:
- That smell of recycled air, you know, the airplane smell?
- Burning fast food from the numeous grease-pits that operate in the tunnels. Chinese food, burger joints, you get it. Interestingly enough, it doesn't really matter what restaurant you go to, every tunnel meal tastes the same. And would someone PLEASE tell me who eats fast-food sushi from a tunnel joint? ACK
- That mildew smell that permeates the entire tunnel system. Why mildew you ask? Well for the same reason no one in Houston has a basement: We're BELOW SEA LEVEL. Who was the genius behind the tunnels? I have to know. Oh, thank you, Tunnel Lady!
- B.O. from the thousands of rats, er, people, that are crawling through the tunnels daily. Perfume, deoderant, office stink, it's all there. Which brings me to my tunnel horror of the day.
I'm walking back to my
building from a lunch trip to my bank (through the maze, of course) and I get stuck behind a large group of squawking women. They're waddling along at a snails pace, effectively blocking anyone from moving ahead. So here I am, trapped behind these women, waiting for my chance to jump ahead of them and escape their prattle, when it
hits. I walked RIGHT into a fart. One of the ladies in the group let one loose and I WALKED RIGHT INTO IT. Oh good Lord I'm amazed that I didn't pass out. This was the kind of smell that should have a color, like in the cartoons. Maybe chartreuse or diarrhea brown. I had to stop and catch my breath as I thought "only in the tunnels".
Damn, I hate working downtown.
seriously, post the sheedy story. hahahaha
Posted by: sister | April 22, 2005 at 11:52 AM
Courtesy of Sheedy:
The fart machine actually belonged to Bowie I think--it was a remote controlled Radio Shack make and it had like 4 or 5 different fart sounds, although only one actually sounded like a real fart. I worked at Wehner at the time and I had access to every room in the building 24/7. One night while closing up I decided that stashing the machine under a seat in room 118 would be a great idea--I had most of my classes in that room and I thought it would be entertaining to set it off in class.
One of the best side stories to this story is that I left it under this one seat for about a week and I would set it off via remote whenever I walked by the room while I was working in the building and class was in session. There is no telling how many farts went off in there during quiet class time.
Anyways, the first time I went to class with the fart machine installed I was very anxious to set it off--I couldn't wait to see the looks on people's faces once the farts started rolling out. I stashed the machine three rows down from where I normally sat in every class. I was keyed on the fart chair before class to see who would be the unlucky Aggie to sit in it. There were two bystanders sitting on either side of the fart chair when class started and I thought we were set. Then, to my initial delight, this girl comes in and sits right in the fart chair and I'm thinking, "Awesome, full speed ahead". Unfortunately, my excitement was immediately dispelled when I realized this girl only had ONE FREAKING ARM! That's right, a one armed girl sat directly in the fart machine chair. I know some of you know the girl I am talking about. She had a twin sister with two arms and I would see one on campus one day and the other the next--at first I just thought it was a nice prosthesis. I didn't have the heart to set that thing off while she was sitting in chair. The fart machine chair experiment would have to wait.
Fast forward another class period. Daigle, Bowie, Libby Ginsbach, and John Calendar join me on the back row for New Product Management. They are all aware of the fart machine planted just 8 feet away. The prof hands out a quiz and silence falls over the room. I reach into my pocket and grasp the fart remote. I know there is only one good fart sound in that machine and I have a 1 in 5 chance of hitting it on the first try. I collect myself and check my composure; the last thing I want is to bust out laughing at the initial sound of the fart because that would look very suspicious. I wait for a particularly quite moment and then I unleash the fart. BAM! Awkward looks immediately befall the faces of those around the machine, but I'm still not sure many around them even realized what the sound was. I wait another 30 seconds..."BBBBLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPP!" This is the fart that really gets me. The laughter begins to boil within me like volcano. All five of us on the back row have the same look of painful constipation on our faces in an attempt to keep from laughing out loud in class. My eyes well with tears and I can barely catch my breath. My stomach is sore from the powerful gut-laugh contractions in my abdomen. The poor victims begin to look around, glancing first at their neighbors, then behind them, and then sheepishly back down at their papers. It was pure genius and I controlled it all at my finger tips.
Noise on the back row begins to cause a bit of a stir in that section of the class. Classmates stare at us like we are crazy but they just don't realize the hilarity of the situation. It is now 5 minutes into the quiz and I haven't even read the first question yet. Bowie looks at me with a pained stare of disbelief--it's like he was laughing so hard but he did not want me to set it off again for fear that we would all explode and give ourselves up. I think I remember "shushing" coming from Libby, like she didn't want me to hit it again. I contemplated the consequences for about ten seconds...then complete silence...and "BBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!"
If you were there you would have thought the back row was being tortured somehow by remote. The same looks of confusion surfaced on my classmates at ground zero--it may have been because one of them actually had a mustache, I don't know. The same strained breathing and epileptic movements emanated from the back row. After the third bomb it seriously took about 3 or 4 minutes for us all to calm down. My body was tired from fighting the laughter--I felt like I had just run 10 miles. I chose not to set it off again. Before I knew it, the quiz was over and I literally had not answered one question on it. I turned it in after jotted down a bunch of BS and made my out of class. It was glorious.
Posted by: Tracy | April 22, 2005 at 12:18 PM
That is a hilarious story.
Also, Houston has TUNNELS? That is just wrong. Sick and wrong.
Posted by: SuzanH | April 23, 2005 at 08:09 AM
hi was up
Posted by: Calina | October 03, 2005 at 04:52 PM