Better.

One of the funniest stories my Mum ever told me, was about a time she was out shopping. I was working at the council at the time and we'd met for lunch. She'd had mushy peas (or sloppy peas as she used to call them) and they often had an immediate and, not uncommon side effect on her. When ever she ate them, she always warned whoever she was with that the was taking a bit of a chance, and so she'd apologise in advance for any 'wind' they may have to encounter.

Anyway, she's walking through the shops in our local shopping centre and decided that the inevitable was about to happen. Now, my Mum was never too worried about where she was when she farted, and since her hysterectomy several years ago, she could produce a sound that would shame a camel. We used to say she had a bigger wind capacity since shed had her 'big end' out. I'm not exaggerating here; I've never heard anything like it. She showed no shame and often in the knowledge that people would assume it was me, rather than the sweet, tiny little lady that she was, would just drop one anywhere. She'd then cross her legs and go all weak at the knees, trying not to pee herself laughing. She had issues, my Mum.

She decided that this was big enough, that she'd wait until she got to the car, just in case the unthinkable happened. (I'm not going to expand on that) So she saved it. Not for long, but a long time for her. She got to her little car in the car park, and braced herself against the door. She did it in style; bent over slightly, with an expression of relieve we only experience at the most sublime moments. When she told me about it, she stressed that even for her, it was a shocker. She didn't know what it was that made her turn around and look at the car parked right next to her, but as she turned, she saw some poor man, sitting in his car with the window rolled down, reading his paper. Poor bastard was less than a foot away from her arse when she did it, and when I imagine it, I see the guys Daily Mail flutter at the corner, under the gust of wind that assaulted him.

She did what only she would do; she looked him in the eye, grabbed her skirt, wafted it for effect and said 'ohhhh, that's better' then got in her car, and drove away. Laughing so hard she nearly crashed the car.

Mo Ripley: May 1945 - October 2009