Joel's First Day of Class, or, The Brilliant Comedic Timing of My Butt

On Tuesday, I was sitting in my new philosophy/ theology class entitled "Negative Certitudes: The Phenomenology of Impossibility," which I hope is going to be as mind-blowing as the name suggests. It's a seminar course, which means it's three hours long, and when the topic is "Negative Certitudes: The Phenomenology of Impossibility," well, it's hard to stay focused for the entire time. So it was near the end of the class, and the professor - who fulfills every stereotype of the French philosopher - was going on and on about God and about what we can really know about God. He was really getting into it, too. I was kind of listening with one ear, kind of staring out the window with... um, my other ear? He's building to a crescendo: "And does dis knowledge of God, dis knowledge dat we cannot have any knowledge whatzoever of God, really count as knowledge of God, or... " And then he pauses for dramatic effect. But he pauses just a little too long.

Tooo-ooot.

I let out a little bugle call of a fart, right into the dead silence of the lecture hall.

The professor got a weird, kind of cross-eyed look on his face for a moment, like he was thinking very, very hard. The silence stretched on. I suddenly became very, very interested in my notes. But then he launched back into his spiel, as if nothing had happened. "... or does dis count az a veree deeferent kind of knowledge..."

I mean, he's French. The French love a good fart joke, right?