’Twas An Ill Wind

One of my earliest memories is of my father’s morning bathroom performance—of which he appeared to be rather proud. In our house, it was considered impolite to expel wind in any other room. Dad made the most of the bathroom exemption. Looking back, I can’t imagine how he managed to contain the volume of gas his innards generated over the course of a night, but his rendition each morning attested to the fact that he did.

My family’s particular euphemism for the act of expelling personal wind was known as ‘making a gun’. I guess it was either my brother or me who coined the term—Dad’s morning sessions reverberated through

the house like a naval bombardment.

Mum, Me & der Vater

I remember once innocently asking my mother why she never ‘made guns’. “Ladies don’t do such things Peter,” she replied primly—and it was years before I discovered otherwise. Not from  Mother of course—she always acted the lady.

At North Sydney Technical High School I took German. Had I gone to a regular high school I would have been given French as a second language. As it was a tech high though, it was German—presumably because of that nation’s engineering prowess—and one of the first phrases we learned was der Vater (the father). Vater was pronounced with a soft ‘v’ that sounded more like an ‘f’. How wonderfully appropriate, I thought.

Even Mum couldn’t complain about my use of Vater in referring to Dad—I was simply improving my German. In time, with frequent use, the word lost its unpleasant connotation and simply became Dad’s nickname. Even Mum came to adopt the name in the more endearing form of ‘Fartley’.

Gug

When my brother moved to New Guinea, his room was taken over by Mum’s mother—affectionately known as Gug. She was even more proper than Mum. The other resident was our dog Sac, who was not so proper, being prone to rather malodorous emissions. Sac did not adhere to the ‘bathroom rule’.

After supper, we’d all retire to the living room to watch TV (except Sac of course who’d just lie there, usually snoring). Occasionally an unpleasant odour would befoul the room and Mum would turn to Dad. “Alec, was that you?” (Whenever she switched from Fartley to Alec it signified mild rebuke). I don’t know whether Mum had a nose that was capable of distinguishing between human and canine wind—but it was normally Dad who came under suspicion.

The unfortunate Sac

His straight-faced reply was invariably, “It was the dog.” Then, turning to the unfortunate beast, he’d order it from the room.

There’s no telling who was actually responsible for these discharges—I might even have snuck in an occasional quiet one myself—though I am certain that nothing of this nature would have come from Mum or Gug.

It got to the stage where Sac, upon detecting an unpleasant odour in the air would, without being told to do so, rise to his paws and, growling softly, stalk from the room.

An ill wind, it is said, blows nobody any good. In this case though, it was always poor old Sac who bore the brunt of the blow.

Edited by Davina