I had been married to my X for almost 20 years.

So…. when we divorced, I was a bit gun shy about dating.

I actually remember crying to my friends, “Who’s going to ever like me again?”

And I’d like to say that they patted my back and comforted me but they actually laughed at me and said, “Are you fucking serious?”

I was.

Divorce will do that to you.

It completely rocks your moral, spiritual, physical foundation and makes you think really crazy thoughts like: No one will ever like me again.

I recovered.

Most of us do.

It takes time, totally cliche but true, and distance and a fair amount of compassion and love.

My first long term dude after my X was Eddie.

We dated one year.

Eddie was a good first dude because he’s funny, down to earth and liked to do a lot of the same stupid things I liked to do:

Walk in the Nature Center

Eat

Lay around and watch South Park

Eat

Listen to music

Eat

and… believe it or not with all this laying around, eating and watching cartoons…

We both had a solid work ethic which kept us from killing each other by spending too much time together.

But the best thing about Eddie, was that he was like my junior high school boyfriend. Seriously… the way we played and hung out was like 7th grade summer.

I’m surprised I didn’t make him ride me around the neighborhood on the handlebars of his cruiser every night around 9 pm… before we had to rush home to beat our curfew and an inevitable grounding.

Eddie could get me to do things that only your junior high school boyfriend could do… And one day… Eddie actually got me to do something I thought I would NEVER do in front of a boy… fart. And… not only that… but actually fart on his hand.

He tricked me.

He knows he tricked me.

Believe me… I DON’T want to write this story but to not write it would mean that I was a complete FRAUD.

If you truly want to put your life out there in the world.. than you have to be HONEST about it and so… I must concede that Eddie Avalos was smart enough to trick me into farting on his hand and I feel like a totally idiot to this day for falling for it.

And if Eddie’s reading this right now… he’s laughing super hard and clapping his little hands because that’s what Eddie does when he thinks something is really funny.

So, Eddie and I were out in the front yard and he was showing off… he was running around on the grass and playing slap fight with me.

I was slapping back but he was quick.

He’d get in a good slap, run away laughing and when I would try to catch him, he would slap me again and run away.

Then, he fell down on the grass, put his legs up in the air, grabbed a lighter from his pocket, and I watched in utter amazement, as he cut a huge fart, flicked the lighter and suddenly shot a huge blue flame out of his ass. Then he laughed like a maniac and got up and ran away again.

It took me a moment to register what had happened.

I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

He was dancing in little circles, thinking he was super funny… when all of a sudden he came over to me and said, “Fart on my hand” and put his hand on my butt.

I slapped his hand away hard… mortified as I shouted, “NO! Girls don’t do that!”

He circled me again… doing some crazy little dance just to egg me on before he put his hand on my butt again and said, “Fart.”

I was slapping him with both hands now but it just made him laugh harder.

“Do it!” he shouted but I repeatedly refused I was NOT going to fart in front of a boy… NO WAY.

But Eddie, who knows me very well… said exactly what he needed to say to get me to take the bait.

“You are such a pussy,” he taunted. “You act like you would do anything… like you are so tough and look at you,” he began to do his little dance again, “You can’t even fart on my hand.”

I became suddenly determined to prove him wrong.

How dare he insinuate I was weak… not up to the task…. less than him because I was too embarrassed to do what he had just done with utter abandon.

I would show him.

Girls could fart just as good as boys.

I would fart on his hand.

The next time Eddie ran up to me, I waited until he put his hand on my butt and then I held my breath, pushed hard, felt something move, and then heard a small “bweeeep” before my fart vibrated across the palm of  his hand.

It seemed for a moment that everything in the world stopped. Completely stopped.

I knew immediately that I had fallen into a trap and that there was no way I could have a “take back.”

I looked up and saw the shock and amusement register on Eddie’s face… his eyebrows actually bounced, his mouth turned into a sly smile and he ran away laughing as he squealed, “Oh my God! You’re a girl! You’re not supposed to fart on my  hand!  Girl’s don’t do that! I can’t believe you just farted on my hand! Eeeeeeew!”

Then he laughed, danced around some more, pretending to smell his hand while shouting, “Eeeeeew! My hand is ruined! You farted on my hand.”

He humilated me in the worse possible way.

First, by basically getting me to fall for the old fart on the hand trick and second, by tricking me into breaking the number one girl rule… don’t ever fart in front of a boy EVER.

I felt my face flush a hot red as I ran over and slapped Eddie as hard as I could, heard  him screech “OUCH!” before I ran into the house TOTALLY embarassed.

A few moments later, he followed me in, jumped on my bed, threw his legs up in the air again and let another fart on fire, giggled like a madman before he kicked off his shoes and prepared to watch cartoons.

“Come on,” he said and patted the bed. “Don’t be such a baby… I was just messing with you. Come on, lie down now and watch cartoons with me.”

I tried to pout as I stomped my  little feet over to my side of the bed and lay down next to him… my legs and arms crossed in silent protest.

We lay there a few moments… waiting for South Park to begin before Eddie smelled his hand one more time and giggled.

I ignored him…or tried to… pretending that I was just so engrossed in the cartoon that I couldn’t even see him… and I probably would have been able to manage that for awhile but in true Eddie form he waited until things were calm and then said, “Have you ever heard of a Dutch Oven?”

I didn’t even give him a look… I just reached over and gut punched him.

He curled up into a ball moaning and laughing and I knew that though I had gotten him back… I would never live down the day that I farted on Eddie Avalos’s hand.