text: During college, there was an ordinary night that saw me come home from an evening study session in one of the academic buildings. As I entered the residential building where my dorm was located, I received a text. I fumbled through the contents of my pocket and by the time I had retrieved my phone and read the text, I had entered the large winding stairwell in the center of my building. I stopped to type a reply to the text I'd received. I'm no good at walking and texting simultaneously- some people can do it. I'm not one of them. As I stood in silence at the bottom of the stairs penning my reply, the door from the floor above me opened. Someone else had entered the stairwell. I don't think I even would have remembered that part if it weren't for the events that followed. My stairwell companion, from the landing of the floor above me, took a few steps and stopped, I presume to gauge if anyone else was occupying the stairwell at that time. I was directly below my companion, texting in silence, so it's reasonable to assume that they didn't realize I was there. Suddenly, flatulence. Like a bugle at dawn, a fart burst into the silence with the singular force, candor, and flourish that only a nasty big messy wet fart is capable of. For perhaps five whole seconds, blups and bops trumpeted out of my stairwell companions rear. Ben Franklin once said the only certainties in life are death and taxes. I can add that, with certainty, I shared a stairwell with someone who defecated (at least a little) into their pants. After the barrage of farts concluded, the mystery farter proceeded down the stairs. I remained glued to the floor, frozen with terror. Eleven or so steps beyond the first-level platform and the farter's identity was made known to me. She stood approximately five foot fine and she was an absolute knockout. I couldn't believe my eyes both in terms of the magnitude of her conventional attractiveness and associating that conventional attractiveness to what had just occurred. Immediately, her face blew past red and turned a smoke-on-the-water shade of deep purple. She took a step towards me- perhaps a gesture to see if I'd pretend that what happened hadn't. I wasn't having it. I said "nuh uh" out loud (something I still regret) and went back outside. She was NOT going to crop dust me in that stairwell, no sir. After that evening, I started to see her more frequently. In a cafeteria, walking to a class, in the gym- on multiple occasions we made eye contact and she'd scurry away in shame. I wanted to tell her that it wasn't a big deal. People fart! I regret overreacting, especially if it made her feel uncomfortable! This is something that we could laugh about! Alas, I never had the chance to try and smooth the awkwardness between us or acknowledge the events of that fateful night. Anyways, that was about 10 years ago and now we work in the same building. Still haven't spoken.