Off-Gassing Civil Disobedience

I have entered several chili cook-offs using the finest ingredients, taking much care, being meticulous and careful with the entire process, paying attention to all the factors, including presentation. And lost.

This year I was more than a little pissy. Maybe I'm not a good cook. So I emptied the refrigerator of leftovers: Pork sausauge. Last week's pizza tomato sauce. The remaining vegetable stock from the local Farmer's Market. Week-old roasted garlic. Onion (that was fresh). A whole huge bowl of sautee' Poblano chilis. A random can of beans. A roasted jalapeno-garlic-ginger mixture experiment that didn't get used. At least two cups of brown sugar and two tablespoons of Cumin powder, and some liquid donated from the warm end of the bottles of several pumpkin beers that didn't taste so good. Seems like there were mushroom butts of baby portabellos - I didn't bother to sautee. Homegrown celery leaves chopped up with cilantro stems. Oh, No Salt, also, too. Bubbled it all into oblivion, put it into a clean crockpot and put it out into the stone-cold frozen car ready to go for the morning, when I could plug it in to return this delectable to its natural semi-liquid state for sharing with all my treasured co-workers.

About that disgusting sugar-chili-made-of-leftovers? It won the cook-off.

There is no accounting for taste.

There were two bites left in the pot, which I ate for academic reasons, then farted the entire rest of the afternoon, I mean really good, long rapid-fire reports. I hope I left all the cook-off participants with that much joy. I love to fart; that is the main reason to not ever get into a relationship because right now I can drink all of the beer while eating all the garlic I want as well as consuming all the other fart-inducing items and fire off like a howitzer. Farting is truly one of life's greatest joys.

Did you know Ben Franklin even wrote a book called "Fart Proudly?"

Most people don't, but beauty is truly in the nose of the beholder; Erica Jong wrote the most true words ever: people love the smell of their own farts.