As my flight from Los Angeles descended low over Queens, someone seated near me let slip a silent but violent fart, the nosehair-singeing smell of which lingered over row 32. Without a word, the young lady to my left pulled a perfume sample card from her Vogue and fanned the air vigorously over our shared armrest. Although not responsible for this airborne toxic event, I was stymied to clear my name and peerless personal odor.
My fashion-reading seatmate was good looking in the L.A. sense—militantly fit, hypertan, bottle-blonde and Ugg-booted—so no one would believe it could have been her. And anyway, girl farts smell like a floral bouquet with cookie basket gift-set from FTD. Or so I’ve heard.
I thought of saying something to defuse the situation, something like “Sweet Jesus! Is there a dead cat stuffed with month-old meatballs in the overhead bin?” But as I learned in grade school, He Who Smelt It Dealt It, so commentary was out. On the other hand, remaining silent on such obvious olfactory malfeasance could just as easily implicate me.
I could not win and was too tired to care, but sensible enough to breathe only through my mouth until I deplaned to the slightly fresher air of New York.