Saunders: Reviled, yet so harmless

Oh, so this is what offends you?

That's what I said to the preacher who played tennis on the same West End courts of Durham that I used to play on three years ago. One day, the post-match conversation between several players, including a cop, turned to some particularly heinous recent crimes, which were graphically described.

Then, as conversations tend to do when a group of men get together, it turned to s-e-x.

This was too much for the racket-wielding reverend, who - although 20 yards away - was in high dudgeon over one particular word. Y'all are throwing that word around a lot, I recall him yelling. Would you please stop it?

I - I mean one of us - began throwing it around even more. As he grabbed his gear and huffed to his car, I tried to stop him. Say, homes. You mean you've listened as we've talked about all manner of violent depravity, but that one word is the magic one that sends you fleeing?

He hasn't spoken to me since. Thanks.

I thought of that outraged reverend last week, when this newspaper received telephone calls and letters from people made apoplectic over a story we ran about a competition held at Marbles Kids Museum. Many of them felt that writing about a contest in which children attempted to emit the loudest noise from their armpits was a sure sign that the Apocalypse was nigh.

Again: So this is what offends you? Not the stories on murdered wives and children, accidents that cut short young lives? Arm flatulence is what does it?

Oy. The story and my subsequent column on arm farts - a terrific name for a heavy metal band, if any are looking for a catchy handle - provoked outrage. Speaking of names, I thought it was impossible for someone to come up with a new one for me. Yet, a deeply offended but creative reader called me "farthead. There you go again. ... In what century will you ever learn the word 'couth'?"

Chill, homes. Like you, I shudder at the lack of couth permeating society. But, as Sigmund Freud supposedly said about the meaning of cigars in dreams - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar - sometimes fun is just fun, with no deeper significance.

If the contest to see who could make the loudest underarm eructation had any deeper significance, it was this: It allowed a son to view his dad as the coolest one in the museum, because he was the only dad who participated.

Amy Westray, whose 5-year-old son Wade won the contest, said, "I called his father and told him they should go" since Wade had just discovered this "newly found talent." She thinks Marbles caved in to the anti-arm fart brigade by announcing there will be no such contest next year. It did.

Let it be noted that many people praised the museum for this unique bonding experience, so don't be surprised if someone, somewhere resurrects it. If so, Wade, the defending Triangle Arm Flatulence Federation champion, and his daddy will be waiting, arms cocked to take on all comers.