It’s really unfortunate when you get in an elevator that stinks from the person who was just in it. Really stinks badly. There’s nowhere to hide. You’re in a little box on a string. You just have to endure until you reach your floor. When you arrive at your destination, someone else is waiting to get on. You do your best to get off without making eye contact. Your gut is telling you to turn around and say, “That wasn’t me!” But you stop yourself because you’d be breaking some cultural convention by discussing farts with a complete stranger. Instead you run for it. That woman thinks you just farted in the elevator and there’s nothing you can really do about it. Guilty of a crime you didn’t commit because you happen to make a living on the 19th floor.

Luckily for you, the cycle continues until the smell dissipates. So in the end, everyone’s judging everyone. It all works out.

Then you go home and blog about farts.