Don't know why this subject should have occurred to me this morning, but as I've not seen it mentioned in anyone's blog before, well why not give it a shot?
I don't suffer from the 'condition' now as far as I'm aware, but in younger days it used to cause me acute embarrassment.
The pinnacle of these blush-causing experiences was (and I've only ever mentioned it to one person - and it cracked him up!) way back in 1970 when, at the age of 24, I went to the cinema to see the newly-released film of Michelangelo Antonioni, one of my favourite directors, his 'Zabriskie Point' - a film largely forgotten now but in those more 'innocent' days was considered a shocking breakthrough in on-screen depiction of raw sex (hetero, naturally) - tame by today's standards when hard-core porn is freely available 'on tap' as it were (or so I've been led to believe!) Anyway, that's by the way.
Before the film I'd indulged myself in a 'meal' of one large, boiled cauliflower (then and still now my favourite vegetable), and nothing else with it. And so, stomach replete with contentment, made my way to the cinema and took my usual circle seat - this was in the days when nearly all cinemas were huge, single-screen auditoria, and if one sat in a certain place in the circle one could look down and see the front rows of the stalls below.
The film began and it wasn't long before I became aware of 'rumblings' within my person. They progressively grew in intensity of sound......and grew.......and grew. Now, as bad luck would have it, the film was not only given over to long periods of silence (long, soundless sequences with slow-moving camerawork being one of Antonioni's 'trademark' techniques) but most of it was set in or near California's Death Valley - hence the film's title - so the visuals were filmed in blazing sunlight from a cloudless desert sky, thus lighting up the entire cinema audience. So every time I 'rumbled', people were starting to turn around and look to see just where this annoyingly distracting sound was originating, in what ought to have otherwise been total silence. It got worse and worse, with me trying to sink lower in my seat. It soon dawned on me that I wasn't going to be able last out this worrying humiliation. The film wasn't yet even half-way through. I would just have to wait for a dark scene when I could creep out of the cinema relatively unnoticed. But would the screen get dark? Would it hell! I waited.....and waited......stomach rumbling on like approaching thunder. The final straw came when, unable in any way to hold it back, a stentorian growl came forth like a lion's roar, reverberating all around the place so that even a couple in the stalls way below me turned round and looked up to see what was happening. Oh, the cutting agony of it! I couldn't wait any longer for the dazzling desert scene to come to an end, even before the sex had properly started, but finally got up, wishing I'd had a high collar on or scarf to cover my identity - and shame-facedly, head depressed to almost between shoulders, I hurriedly made my way out, feeling that all eyes were on me, tut-tutting me to the exit - Begone, pest!
I returned home - and it was a further six years before I managed to catch up with another chance to see the complete film, and so at last being able to include 'Zabriskie Point' in my 'register' of films actually seen on a cinema screen.
But oh, how I still cringe when recalling the horror I went through to get there!
On even earlier instances of a related theme - though in this case caused by actual hunger rather than by having unwisely consumed something with 'consequences' - the school I attended (St Mary's College, Middlesbrough) every Thursday morning just before lunchtime, all the boys would be herded into Church to attend Mass - and when it came to tummy-rumbles it always sounded like my stomach was louder than anyone else's. After the first such sound (then emanating from whomsoever), the boys not just immediately around me, but in the pews in all directions, would giggle as quietly as they could, then cruelly await the inevitable next 'contribution' from some 'unfortunate' they could mock, albeit in stifled manner - making it still worse for those of us who were so 'afflicted'. Although it wasn't just me alone, it always sounded like my 'instrument' would be a contender for the forte prize. Helpless to supress it, it would come out whatever I did - clenching abdominal muscles, even praying, imploring God to make it stop - please! - though all to no avail. And when it did make its aural presence known ("Here I am!") they'd all snigger and laugh under their breaths - and then it would fall silent again apart from the celebrant priest's Latinate intonations, .....and they'd wait for who'd be next - more often than not, as it seemed, me again! Mental torture in extremis!
Happy days? Far from it. More like my Gethsemane!
Btw; In my 'comeback' posting of a few days ago I intimated that future posts would be "concise and pithy". The two I've submitted since then have certainly not been the former. Have to bear this in mind for whatever's next.
Raybeard....i can't lie and at your expense did you have me in throws of laughter over this story!!!!!!!! Just be glad when you got up to exist....you didn't backfire very loudly!!!!!!!! That would have had the place in tears.
ReplyDeleteMe thinks you should not be in quiet places when hungry or right after eating certain foods. Bwhahahaha!!!! Now you have my side's hurting in laughter!
Well I wasn't laughing when typing this, N.M. - the memories hurt even now - but suddenly I'm beginning, after all these decades, to see a funny side. Wasn't it Woody Allen who said that comedy is tragedy plus time? Well if so, in this case it's taking nearly a life's length of time. And as for 'backfiring' on getting up from my seat - as you so delicately put it - that really would have been the cherry on top! (in a manner of speaking).
DeleteHaven't you been susceptible to tummy rumbles yourself? I think that you surely will have been though maybe not inordinately so. Although I am still aware of them when they occur they are nowhere near as 'traumatic' as they once were.
Anyway, I'm now cheered up a bit, having been under a little gloom when resurrecting these painful recollections. Thanks for helping me get some long-delayed 'entertainment' from the episodes.
M.M., not N.M., Maddie - of course.
DeleteOh yes. Before the pandemic rendered me laid off, if would never fail, in my bosses Monday morning meeting of weekly projects, with fail, it was either mine or one of my other co-workers with loud tummy rumbles. Was embarrassing at first, but then we'd all start laughing. It some days was as if my tummy rumbles were answering those of my co owrkers. And yes....then there was church. But my poorly departed father was the worst. He did have a backfire right during communion once. As a young boy I was trying my best to not laugh, and my poor mother was horrified. If I recall correctly, I think we skipped two weeks in a row, in hopes people would forget.
DeleteI guess all one can do is laugh and move on. My aunt tend to get terrible tummy rumbles , always, after eating too. And I myself have learned to not eat Brussel spouts if I'm going out of the house.
I had no idea that this subject could be such a large part of another person's life, M.M., though hardly a strategic part in your case, if inconvenient. I think it needs someone who suffers from the same 'malady' to start laughing at it to break down the barriers on something that may be regarded as 'not polite' to refer to.
DeleteI don't recall any instance of farting in Church myself, though as I was a regular weekly attendee until my mid-20s it would have been surprising if I've never surreptitiously sneaked one out - some of the sermons were soooooo long - but I can't recall ever having done so, unlike the subject of this posting.
Ah, sprouts - my SECOND favourite veg which, as far as I know, with me don't have quite the intensity of effect they seem to on other people. Cauli and sprouts together? Oh yes PLEASE!
I love Cauli too! I dare say if we ever broke bread over a meal of Cauli and sprouts together, we may compete with one of the local symphonies.
DeleteFor sure we'd need to have an air freshener spray on hand, M.M.
DeleteAnd any orchestra we could get to join would have no need for trombones. In fact, we could between us supply for them an entire 'wind section'.
I’ve had similar experiences, albeit none as sever or as enduring as yours. Due to my many gut issues, I’ve had to sit through embarrassing tummy tremors during interviews, meetings, and while interacting with co-workers and I can attest to the humiliation it invokes. Sorry you had to experience this.
ReplyDeleteI've started to laugh,,,,well, smile....at it now for the first time, S/b, in large part sparked off by Maddie's funny comments above. When there are so few alternative ways to react then I'm sure that this is the best one.
DeleteIn your own situation you must have had many hellish times when the last thing you wanted to do was to explain to anyone else what was happening and why. In comparison I ought to be thankful for small mercies, so don't feel TOO sorry for me - or, indeed, feel sorry at all. At least in my case, such circs have long been consigned to the past.
I think I knew where this story was headed when I read 'large boiled cauliflower.'
ReplyDeleteSuffering from a surfeit of my favourite veg, Bob. Every positive must have its downside, right? Yin and Yang. :-)
DeleteI thought the same as Bob. Your Cauliflower meal is like my making a meal of Brussel Spouts. Like viewing the Titanic, it doesn't take a genius to know how it will end.
DeleteIt's always referable - nay, essential - to be living alone [as I've done for the last 45 years] if one is going to indulge regularly in certain foodstuffs which have a particular side-effect - or, better, arse-end effect.
Delete'referable'? PREFerable!
DeleteYou don't need to be concise. I love your stories. As for the growling stomach, at least the sounds weren't emanating from other areas! (That would be a story John Gray would tell.) I remember my senior year at university, I had a class twice a week on the Beat Generation. It was a small (less that 10 students), quiet, discussion group. It must have been the time of day, but my stomach insisted on growling every time I was in that class. The other students were much too cool (hip, ya dig?) to pay it any mind. However, I still would shovel papers, scrape my chair, cough... anything to cover up the music being made inside me.
ReplyDeleteWhat a well-mannered class you had - though I dare to think that once you were out of ear-shot they were not nearly so polite.
DeleteSome of the classes I've been in, even way back at school, would have ripped any teacher with a growly tummy to pieces in his absence, and any co-pupil directly to his face.
I remember once in class at school when I was about 12 or 13, quite inadvertently between classes (so no teacher present) letting rip, which I then tried hopelessly to cover by coughing, hoping against hope that anyone who'd heard would think that it had only been an oral sound. Can you really imagine that's what the entire class really thought? Oh, the humiliation, the sheer ignominy of it!