Ake's Pains debuted in the University of Akron Buchtelite in September of 1977. The school's reputation as an institute of higher learning has still not recovered. Ake's Pains returns after a brief 32 year hiatus. It's back, baby!

Monday, April 18, 2016

This Business Dinner Was A Gas


The evening was going so wonderfully. We had a friendly group of several dozen people, gathered in a private room at one of the city’s finest restaurants. As we waited for dinner to be served, the gorgeous young woman on my right was very impressed with my wealth of knowledge. She was pumping me aggressively – for information, sucking hard – on my brain.

And then suddenly, quietly, without warning, everything changed.  There was a thick, pungent, odor engulfing my immediate area. The lively, pleasant, atmosphere was totally destroyed by someone’s inconvenient flatulence.

That’s correct, this blog post is about a fart. But not just any fart, an extraordinarily unique fart, as I will now explain.  

This fart was exceptional due to its extreme intensity. My middle-aged nose may have lost some of its olfactory capability, but this was the most powerful emission of human gasitude that I have ever encountered in my life. It was a nasty, nasty, fart.

If you unleashed this fart on the battlefield, you would be violating the Geneva Convention. It definitely would be considered a weapon of mass distraction. The restaurant was dark, but I’m sure this cloud of thick gastric fog would have been actually visible under better lighting.  It was so potent; I’m surprised the wallpaper didn’t fall off the wall.
Bad, nasty, toxic, gas!

This was far worse than any gas my dog generates. It wasn’t as much nauseating as it was toxic. If I had access to a gas mask, I would have been wearing it.  It is difficult to even describe just how ghastly this gas really was. At one point, I thought I was going to literally pass out.

The other remarkable thing about this disgusting gas attack, is where is occurred.  This was, for lack of a better term, a “business fart”.  It was encountered while I was at a large dinner table, surrounded by customers and potential customers.

The problem is you can never publicly acknowledge a business fart, even though everyone is aware of it.  You cannot ask “who cut the cheese?” because of the potential business consequences of embarrassing the cheezer.  You do not have any idea how powerful that person is.  Okay, so you do have a sense of his power, but what I mean is you don’t know where this person is on the organization chart.  Exposing the culprit could cost you your job and this could prove extremely embarrassing for you.

Interviewer: “Why were let go from your previous job, Bill?”

Bill: “Our CEO cut a horrendous fart and I called him on it”

So even as this fart choked us all, not a word was said. We all had to carry on with what we were doing, pretending everything was fine while being poisoned.  You could not even cover your nose with your hand, you just had to sit there, hoping you were not going to die.

Unfortunately, I was talking (I know that’s difficult to believe) at the time of the fart.  I was espousing my profound business knowledge to those around me, including the lovely lass mentioned previously.  However, when the smell hit my nostrils, my brain literally shut off.  I’m in mid-sentence and suddenly I can’t think because this horrendous odor is trying to kill me.  I mumble out some meaningless words to finish my thought and try to maintain my composure. All while trying to conceal the fact that an atrocious fart has been farted.

I assume the human body must have a defense mechanism that when you are exposed to poisonous gas, your brain shuts off because you are not supposed to think, you are not supposed to speak, you are just supposed to run like hell to save your life.

Only I couldn’t run. If I jumped up and ran for the door, it would be an acknowledgement that a business fart had been discharged.  Worse yet, the people around me might think I was running for the bathroom, therefore making me a prime suspect as the farter.  So I had to sit in the middle of this warm, thick, fart-fog, trying to maintain consciousness at all cost.

I did consider telling people I had to make a call and excuse myself to the hallway.  I also thought about calling 911.  However, I did not think the operator would take serious a report of someone at La Grenouille “cutting silent, but deadly, horrendous farts”.  I feared becoming an Internet sensation as the guy who called 911 because people around him were passing gas.  If I had called 911, I would have told them to bring the bomb sniffing dog so it could sniff out the butt of the perpetrator.   What an interesting scene and fine end to the evening that would have been. “Line up and bend over and ol’ Betsy here will identify the shooter.” 

But I never was able to determine who the nasty dealer was.  I know it wasn’t woman seated to next to me. She was way too hot and petite to accomplish this feat.  No, this was indeed manly fart, farted by a man.   

I do feel somewhat guilty about not reporting this to any health officials. If this guy is capable of generating gas this toxic, I fear that he has a serious health problem and may already be dead.  If that is the case, may he rest in peace and may his family be successful in fumigating their house.

Unfortunately, they never prepared me for an evening like this in business college, not even in the MBA program. Although I doubt “Managing Business Farts” would be a popular course at the Harvard Business School.  Perhaps I should write a whitepaper, er, make that a brownpaper on the subject.

Fortunately, I survived the nasty, nasty, fart, had a superb dinner, and was able to maintain excellent customer relationships despite the challenges.  Next time somebody tells me “business stinks”, I will tell them just how much it really does.

Please buy my new humor book - Just Make Me A Sammich http://donake.net/just-make-me-a-sammich-book



Saturday, April 2, 2016

The Wackiest Presidential Election Ever

Who knew democracy could be so darn entertaining?

A surprising, new political party has emerged as a powerful force in the 2016 U. S. presidential race.  It is the Pissed Off Party (POP) and boy are they ever pissed off!

People are really pissed at the Elite Establishment Party (EEP) who either ignore the problems, deny they even exist, or hope they will get better by sprinkling magically fufu dust on them.  The EEP’ers are too busy eating expensive shrimp, playing exclusive golf, sipping fine wine, and walking around looking important in fancy, exquisite, suits, to be bothered by actual governance.

The POP’ers want candidates who are in a pissed off rage, in hopes that in being so pissed off, they will actually do something beneficial if elected. It is suspected that the EEP candidates wish to get elected so they can eat more expensive shrimp.

Fortunately, two extremely pissed off candidates have emerged to lead the POP.  These guys are really pissed off and they yell and scream at their rallies, which results in people getting even more pissed off at everybody. It has created a circle of piss, and you obviously don’t want to be standing in the middle of it, that’s for sure.

Ironically, even though the POP has two enormously pissed off candidates, one pisses to the left and the other pisses to the right.  The important thing is both these pissed-off guys are raising significant political issues that the EEP candidates do not want to discuss, which frankly pisses them off.  It has turned in to one huuuuuge pissing match.

The EEP candidates have tried to pander to the POP’ers by claiming they are pissed off about things too! Unfortunately, they may be highly agitated, greatly annoyed and egregiously irritated, but they are not sufficiently pissed off.  To appeal to the POP, you must be truly, undeniably, tremendously, pissed off, and these fakers are not. 
  
Another strategy from EEP’ers is to tell the POP’ers that they should not be pissed and they should just “calm down”.  Of course this just pisses them off even more. (As any married man could have predicted) This huuuuge level of pissofficy has created one of the most bizarre presidential campaigns in history.  No subject is off limits.

Candidates have argued about who has the largest wanker and the subject even came up … er no, it was raised, um no…..  let’s just say it was masterfully debated in Detroit. At one point during the debate I thought the guys were actually going to whip them out and compare, just like junior high school.  And though there is disagreement on which candidate has the biggest wanker, there is no question who has the biggest balls.

Next election, I think there should be a Wanker Party that runs candidate Iva Biggun for president.  You may laugh, but considering the choices this year, you would take a look at him, er I mean you would have to consider him.  And the Wankers would win every big caucus, wouldn’t they?  Their campaign slogan could be “Make America Straight Again”.

There is also a discussion regarding women voting with their vaginas.  In the old days this would have been impossible, but now we do have touch screens for voting in Ohio. Still, the screen is probably too high to reach with a hoo-haa, but maybe if a woman stood on a chair and straddled the thing, she might be able to do it.

I really hope women do not try this. If the woman next to me is voting with her vagina, it is going to be darn distracting.  I am going to have to stop and watch her vote, and if she is that limber and that skilled, I’ll probably applaud when she finishes, maybe even tip her. I know it’s not likely to happen, but I’m
You may want to clean the screen before voting!
bringing a “wet-nap” with me, just in case, to clean my touch screen before voting.

Some idiots have even tried to disrupt and stop POP rallies. This is stupid for two reasons. First, the people there are already pissed off. Piss them off even more and their commitment to being pissed off greatly increases.  Second, you risk pissing off the moderately agitated. If they do become pissed off, then they become new members of the POP.  Either way, by staging these protests, you strengthen the opposition.

And I must point out that people have the right to express their political opinions, even if these opinions are so disgusting and frightening to you that you $h!+ your pants.  I realize you Millennials out there will think that I am doing “kooky” talk and making this up, but if you Google “first amendment to the U.S. Constitution”, you will see that I am correct. I’m not sure what they are teaching in the schools these days, but it sure as hell ain’t American history and probably not much economics either.

So there is now one good candidate and four whackjobs. I can say that without offending anybody, because everyone now believes this to be true, we just vehemently disagree who the “good” candidate is!  The real problem is; we have way too many whackjobs still in this race.  

And there is a good chance when you go to vote, you will be challenged with choosing between two whackjobs and trying to determine which one is less wacked. It is unfortunate there are no longer actually “voting booths” or you could close the door and start to cry before casting your vote. Unfortunately, your high school civics class never prepared you for this moment.  I think I can hear Karl Marx laughing, or is that Bernie Sanders? I can’t really tell.

Please buy my new humor book - Just Make Me A Sammich http://donake.net/just-make-me-a-sammich-book