The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race by Sara Barron Page B

I farted in response. It was not intentional. It was merely the choice my body made on my behalf.
    The sister screamed again.
    “She’s farting!” she screamed. “
On
me!”
    “Not technically,” I said. “Technically, I’m farting
above
you.”
    One of her male contemporaries charged over and grabbed me by the collar of my delicate chemise.
    “You’re outta here,” he said. “That shit was disrespectful.”
    I’m not convinced a person does himself a favor by mentioning the word “respect” at a sorority party. He, my molester, held me by the collar of my delicate chemise while the sister lay at our feet huddled in the fetal position. Beside us stood a young woman who’d removed her own brassiere so she could use it as a toilet. People were
applauding
in response, and, I’m sorry, but my feeling is that if one woman is allowed to urinate into her own brassiere—and believe you me: I am
glad
that she is—then another woman should
not
be chastised for a little toot. A little root-toot. A little trumpet de la rumpet.
    I made the choice not to argue about it, however, as I was too afraid of my molester. I just asked him—nicely—to please let go of my collar. I tried, for the sake of a smooth exit, to tell him I was sorry.
    “I am sorry,” I said, and then turned to the sister. “And to you, miss: I am sorry.”
    Having apologized, I took off my high peep-toe heelsand made my way out the front door. I wasn’t wearing socks or pantyhose, but I figured I could walk barefoot the ten minutes it would take to get back to my dorm.
    As I walked, I reflected.
    I had tried getting drunk—I was still
currently
drunk—and yet I had not been sexily hoisted nor perceived as a lady of wild taste and ability. All I’d been seen as, really, was a woman who farted on better-looking women. And where was the coolness in that? It was mysterious in its way, and possessing of a certain level of darkness, but it was nonetheless the wrong variety of both. Mysterious like
I talk to myself while I shit
. Dark like
I pee in a cup when I’m tired
. It wasn’t any inch of what I wanted.
    To compound the issue I couldn’t relax for so much as an hour once I got home before I myself had to vomit. I threw up in my awful freshman toilet in my awful freshman dorm. As I did, I thought, This is fucking disgusting. I’ll never drink like that again.
    It’s a common enough promise for someone in a regretful situation, but the noteworthy thing here was that I meant it. I never drank like that again. From that day forth—from the moment I left that sorority party—I always drank in moderation. I established a system. I was surprised to see it worked.
    Several weeks after the sorority party I was invited to another party thrown by a fellow acting student. Determined not to repeat the trauma from those weeks before, I went out the afternoon of the party and bought myself a stopwatch. I planned to use the stopwatch to keep track of my drinking. I would allow myself one drink per hour, for up to four hours. I would use the stopwatch to time the intervals. I would stock up on bagels prior to the party for proper alcohol absorption, and each time I had a drink, I’d eat a bagel.
    What this all meant, then, was that I attended this second party wearing a stopwatch, as well as a backpack that was large enough to carry many bagels. It didn’t help me look cool or mysterious, although I nonetheless tried acting cool
and
mysterious. When my stopwatch beeped, I tried turning it off in a “Bond, James Bond” kind of way. When it was time to eat a bagel I tried doing so daintily, in the fashion of an alluringly troubled woman of mystery.
    I had this sneaking sense, though, that my efforts weren’t successful. At the second party someone said, “Cool backpack,” and although I said, “Thank you,” I did also intuit that what he meant, really, was, “That is not a cool backpack.”
    Then someone else said, “Oh. Hey. Where did you get that