As a fourty four year old I frequently discover new body misfunctions. Something doesn't work the way it used to. Something does something you wouldn't expect it to do. I'm not on my cellphone sharing the celebration of any of these new discoveries. When you're two its different. Except without the cellphone.
Last night on the way out to eat Eritrean food with a friend in the back with our permanent rear-seated passenger, she shared. 3 times. It probably felt pleasurable, as it can when it's not repressed by awkward social etiquette. She also knew it was funny. Two year old funny. Body function funny, but notable. Here on in begins the long climb towards a mature sense of humor and depth. From this shallow recognition of farting begins the long, slow, drawn out, primitive accumulation of humourous material. Now and then she will take a big leap forward towards less shallow jests, but they will be small leaps. And one day we will turn around and she will make a joke that we will laugh at as equals. Perhaps an insight into the complexity and contradictions of life, perhaps something emotionally messy, but she will make it and the "I'm farting" exclamations will fade into a distant memory of more simple world with simpler pleasures.
