Mask Your Ass!

It feels super weird to wear a face mask in public, but I’m totally game since it helps stop the spread of Stupid COVID19. I am so sick of that POS virus. By now we’ve all heard the CDC recommendations and that masks prevent the droplets from reaching other people. Blah. Blah. Blah.

My dear friend sent me an article last week with the information that we’re really interested to hear. “Can Farts Spread Disease?” Totally scientific, I swear. I read the article and am prepared to present! Ready for Journal Club, my friends?

An operating room nurse was concerned that her farts might be contaminating the sterile surgery field. All that effort that goes into scrubbing under fingernails and carefully placing surgical drapes and then **POOT!** It’s all gone to shit.

She was so concerned that she posed the question to an Australian physician and author, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki.

This subject and name reminds me of a guy in my pharmacy school class with kind of a crazy name like that. We called him JJ. He was big and silly and he regularly let a loud one rip right in the middle of a lecture. So juvenile, I know. But OMG it was so funny! This is how we used to Zoom Bomb, Kids!!

I wonder how I would feel if I worked really hard to prepare a lecture and some kid cut a big cheese right in the middle of one of my sentences. Would I be mad? I don’t know. I have a feeling I might get the giggles so hard that I wouldn’t be able to finish my presentation.

After the nurse asked Dr. Karl about whether farts will contaminate a sterile field, he got right to work! He contacted one of his microbiologist buddies who conducted an experiment by asking one of his buddies to cut a muffin into two Petri dishes from a distance of about 2 inches. One time his buddy had his pants on, and one time his buddy did not.

How does one prepare to fart two times? Did the farter do this in one hour? One day? Did the farter perhaps carry Petri dishes around, prepared to whip them out whenever a gas amassed?

Or was this a very talented farter who was able to split the fart? Kind of like Butt Kegels. Is that a thing? Now you’re going to try it, aren’t you? I know I am.

Were the science friends together when the toot samples were gathered? I just don’t know if I could start my motorcycle with someone watching. Performance pressure, you know?

And if the friends were together, WHO HELD THE PETRI DISH? It was amply complicated to hold that pregnancy testing stick in the right place while aiming my pee, and that had a nice, pink handle. A standard Petri dish is about two-and-a-half inches in diameter and about a half in thick. AND ROUND. I can’t imagine trying to hold that sucker two inches from my butthole AND ALSO coax a bottom burp.

Would you hold that Petri dish for me, my friends? In the name of science? I don’t know if I could do that for you. I would probably laugh so hard that you would have to aim your stinker at a moving target.

And this was not the only experiment that was cited. Earlier this year, an officer for the Chinese Center for Disease Control announced that pants should be an effective barrier against farts that might carry COVID19.

IS COVID19 IN FARTS?? This is next level SBD!! I don’t think so, since Dr. Karl found that most of the bacteria in his experiments were not harmful.

In the end, Dr. Karl deduced that pants do indeed provide an effective barrier to farts. So along with wearing masks in public, don’t forget to cover that trouser cough.

Thank you for reading, my friends! I hope you are all staying safe and well. Wash your hands and don’t forget to wear pants!