FIBER ONE BUNNIES

When you spend time with someone for six and a half hours a day, five days a week for nine and a half months, you are going to get to know them pretty well. At the beginning of each school year I tell my fourth grade students exactly that. I also add that we will probably "blow bunnies" in front of each other.

Blowing bunnies is a British nom de plume for farting, at least according to my British sister-in-law, Maggie. Maggie used that slang term for farts many years ago when I first met her. Many years later I reminded her of the expression and much to my surprise, she told me she had never heard it before and I didn't know what I was talking about. Now normally I would accept that as a fact, but this time I asked my wife, Peggy, if I had imagined it, and she said no, I was not imagining it. Peggy had heard her say it too. Maggie had forgotten, or had made it up, or was playing with me. We'll never know. But I don't care. The expression "blowing bunnies" is cute, and the kids love it.

Last week we got to know each other a little better. Someone in our class, whose name will go unmentioned, let loose a rip-snorter, a thundering powerhouse of a fart normally developed and released by a seasoned longshoreman. The class roared with laughter out of the normal embarrassment but with an added shock value. This was a long, deep, titanic blast of gastronomical methane. I have never heard a fourth grader, or any elementary student fart like that, ever. Normally the guilty party is difficult to detect. When a child blows a bunny, it's small, cute, and discreet. This was different. Everyone knew who the guilty party was.

The guilty party stood up, spread their arms wide, and exclaimed, "But guys! I had Fiber One for breakfast!"

Having lifted weights and supplemented my diet with Hoffman's High Protein powder, I knew exactly what had happened. Your diet can affect your ability to blow bunnies.

A new commercial:

"Fiber One. Generating the loudest fart ever heard in a fourth grade classroom."