This is from my brief anthology of expired Craigslist “Rants and Raves” posts. The event in question did not happen, at least not exactly like this.

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To the woman behind me in line at King Soopers (Boulder)

Last night, at about 10 p.m. at the Table Mesa store, you were in line behind me. I think it was register 9. I was dressed in a short-sleeve plain blue button-down shirt, olive-green shorts, and Tevas, and was sporting a tan and a spiky blond haircut that belied my 41 years on the planet. In short, I looked good for my or any age. Hot, even. But I was about to trash whatever grand impressions you had to have formed at a glance in a most miserable and incontrovertible way.Shortly after I had unloaded my purchases (a six-pack of 3.2% Budweiser beer, a jar of pickled eggs, some frozen crab cakes and several heads of cabbage) onto the conveyor belt, I was struck by the urge to release an unknown but not-insubstantial quantity of flatulence. The sensations of heat I was experiencing told me that this fart-to-be would be of the silent variety, as the temperature and volume of expelled flatus is — for reasons never explained to me — inversely correlated. And a corollary of the fact that loud farts very rarely stink is that those that to not register on the human auditory scale are typically off-the-charts noisome and rank. Nevertheless, I was confident that this eructation would be limited in scope and that the gases would disperse too quickly for you or the clerk to appreciate.

Oh, I was wrong. So wrong. I knew this within two seconds of birthing that hissing monster into the store.

I don’t know what I ate yesterday afternoon, but in any case, all three of us who were present at register 9 last evening paid a heavy price. It’s possible that the clerk honestly didn’t notice, as she kept up her stream of desultory chatter as she rang up my items with nary a wince. This, however, was not your fate. I had stupidly kept my hindquarters aimed in your direction as I committed this act of low-grade colonic terrorism, and there is no question that you were as overwhelmed with the atrocious small, a perplexing and toxic hybrid of maple-walnut ice cream, bacon bits, and vaginal secretions. I can only account for one of the three, but the human GI tract is a curious synthesizer.

Understanding that whatever smell I perceived was only one-tenth as awful as that inhaled by those nearby, I was immediately awash in piercing shame and embarrassment. To my thinking, what I had just done was no less rude than had I leaped onto the register, dropped my shorts, spread my cheeks inches from your face, and let fly with a flamboyant tuba blast of sharticles that, unfettered by clothing, would have peppered your pretty face with a coarse later of faecal matter to accompany the unholy stench. It was, as you know, just that bad.

To your credit, however, you did not react. When I chanced a glance backward as I made my way toward my pair of plastic sacks, you were calmly looking down into your canvas bag (oh, it figured that you would be environmentally conscious when I had just turned the establishment into a temporary Superfund site) and fetching your own purchases. When I departed, making every effort to give the appearance of a controlled saunter, you were still conscious, a situation I can only attribute to divine intervention.

All this, and to think I had been preparing to lightly hit on you. Such notions could not have been put to rest with greater force or finality, and moreover, I am so, so sorry.