AssparaGAS

On Valentines Day 2008 Lauren and I had a VERY romantic dinner which included delicious salmon, yummy baked potatoes, cheesecake, chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels, sparkling grape juice... and perfectly steamed asparagus.

There is a precious post on Lauren's blog about it. If you want to read it, click here.

I had been going in to the office early a couple days a week to exercise before work because I was feeling and looking kind of chubby. (I was... check out Lauren's blog)

As soon as I sat down at my desk after my workout that day, I composed the following e-mail:

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:23:49
From: Joseph.Shumway@efirstbank.com
To: laurenshum@hotmail.com
Subject: my "stinky" morning

Hi My Love,

Remember how I asked if asparagus gives you gas?? It does! This morning as I was working out, I felt a faint urge and decided to hold it because there were 2 other people in the small workout room and its just not right to do that to strangers. As time went on and I was exerting myself more and more, I failed to give proper attention to my back end and accidentally let one slip out... silently. "What a relief, at least I didn't let it crack out loud in an embarrassing way!" I was thinking... until a moment later when I was hit square in the face with my tang. Not only does asparagus give you gas, but it's a gas that smells like a mixture of rotting death and sugar beet factory pollution. My next thoughts were "Please just stay in this area, don't spread around the room! These people didn't do anything to you... PLEASE.... PLEASE!" But there was no stopping it, I could feel it swell, a chemical reaction with the oxygen in the air must have occurred causing the vapor to expand and intensify. Do you remember the Southwest Airlines commercials? "Wanna get away?" That has never been so real for me in my entire life! It was not long before it became evident that my workout companions were being nasally assaulted. Neither one said anything, but the girl doing sit-ups on the exorcize ball quietly stood up, wiped her face, looked at the guy on the treadmill as if to ask "are you staying?" and quickly walked out of the room to the safety of the "breathable" hallway air. She will likely look back on this morning as one of her top 5 traumatic experiences while working out. I don't know if I can ever use that facility again. And if I do, I wonder if my mark will remain seared into the equipment, carpet and walls of the room.

My other "stinky" experience is that I forgot to pack clean garments in my bag last night so I had to put on my slightly sweaty, stank bottom stained garments and will probably have kind of a funky smell all day long. Can this day just be over?

I love you!

Joseph

We will never eat asparagus again without remembering the day after Valentines Day 2008.