Paphos People

INVOLUNTARY NOISES

My body seems to be developing its own communication system. Every organ, every orifice seems to have a voice of its own, for example: The other day I was running late for a doctor’s appointment, no time for breakfast, I entered the waiting room and sat down. My stomach gave out a rumbling ‘Helllooooow’. What made it worse was that two people reading magazines replied ‘Good Morning’ without even looking up.
Lying in bed on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee, it started again with a shrill whining, prompting my wife to comment ‘That bloke over there off he goes again with his chainsaw at this time in the morning!’

Who hasn’t had a sneezing or a coughing fit at a most inopportune moment in the theatre or a solemn occasion like a wedding or a christening or even worse a funeral? Something is in control of these noises and it is certainly not you!
From creaking joints or cracking fingers to clicky jaw, your skeleton sounds like it needs a lubrication system, a grease nipple here and some oil there might help. I tried using that new deodorant WD40 but it wasn’t any better but it did have an unusual smell though.

In a very serious moment when it is important to behave in a correct manner does something set you off? You feel a smile forming you try in vain to keep a straight face, to no avail. Then suddenly you explode into uncontrollable manic laughter. You try to regain your decorum as people turn to see what the commotion is that only makes it worse. You won’t be invited to that place again!
Then there are Hiccups, your whole body erupts with a voluble HIC. You try everything to stop it, holding your breath for two minutes you turn purple and breathe out very carefully. Hoping they have gone you relax. Just as you feel confident that you have beaten them, without any warning, HIC!
But the most embarrassing and sometimes funniest involuntary noises are of course expelled wind whether it’s a belch, after some kind of aerated drink, beer, coke or worst of all after champagne, or noisily passing wind via the other end.
Everybody is guilty of this, there are no exceptions, even our dear Queen Elizabeth II must succumb to this, and maybe that is why she is always surrounded by corgis. Blame the dog seems to be the answer to regal effluvia.

What a good job that methane is a colourless gas, in a crowded room a perpetrator would be surrounded by a purple or orange haze and would have to leave the premises literally under a cloud.

So as you progress into your dotage, it seems less important to try and suppress these noises, people tend to sit one seat apart from you out of politeness or in case they get the blame for it. When visiting elderly relatives in an old person’s care home nobody seems to notice odours, which gives you a chance to expel wind yourself without any fear of repercussions.
We attended a funeral of a venerated old chap and somebody commented on his propensity to pass wind at will. They commented that at least with him being dead, the air would be cleaner from now on. So as they get older people seem to lose any sense of embarrassment or improper behaviour in that area.

I might be getting old myself soon and eventually I will die but who wants to live forever anyway under those conditions!