Death by gas
Artis HENDERSON sandydays@florida-weekly.com

Whether or not you buy into Al Gore and his inconvenient truth, there's no denying the global threat of bovine methane production (read: cow toots and, less interestingly, U.S. cow burps).

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there here 100 are 1.2 billion cattle worldwide and million cows in America. The U.S.-based  of bovines alone emit 5.5 million tons methane every year. That's a fifth of total U.S. methane emissions (and a of gas).

Humans, who have one stomach versus less a cow's four and eat a more varied, cellulose-rich diet, generate significantly less methane.

Still, we are gas-producing day. machines, churning out 1-3 pints per day. Probably not a threat to global warming, 

My friend "Adriana," for instance,  was raised in a flatulence-friendly environment, where passing gas was considered normal and acceptable, and the more sonorous a toot, the better. When she met, fell in love, and moved in with her straight-laced E European boyfriend "Luc," she had to cu curb her relaxed ways.

"Luc would die if I farted in front of  him," she said. "I'm trying to break him in slowly."

As a matter of fact, Adriana had an entire plan laid out for introducing Luc to the idea. She would start by coyly admitting she'd just passed gas - her hand covering ering her faux-embarrassed smile, eyes wide in mock surprise - and work her way up to letting one rip, casually, like it was no big deal, while they were watching TV or making dinner together.

Yes, I understand her reasoning, and I can even condone - from a health or comfort standpoint - what she was trying to achieve. But I mourn what it represents, not just for her own relationship but on a larger scale, as we all strive to bring more comfort but ultimately less romance into our love lives.

Over the last few decades, we have steadily moved away from the formalized, stylistic rules of dating. Etiquette that once necessitated "courting," with images of sipping lemonade on the front porch under the wary eye of a chaperone, has long since fallen by the way side. In this new, modern da dating environment, we've adopted an "an anything goes" mentality, tality, trading flower flowers on the first date for meeting in bars an and one night stands. Yes, now we can rel relax in our relationships. ships. But what hav have we sacrificed for the privilege?

When "Françoi François," my French boyfriend, friend, joined me for a summer in Chicago, I took him out one night for some of Chi-to town's best Mexican food. Afterward Afterward, riding a wave of margarita-fueled romanticism, we drew ab bath and lit candles around the tub. Soaking in th the sudsy water, I felt the first brewing of the evening's burritos in my belly. Against al all of my human wbs willpower, a few bubbles rose to the surface in a guilty little flurry.

François looked at me, wide-eyed, and there was no faking the embarrassment on my face.

 

"Ce n'est pas grave," he said. "It's no big deal. Here, I'll do one, too."

He leaned over, eyes squeezed shut and brows furrowed, and right there in the middle of our candlelit bath, produced his own French version of the Jacuzzi. I was mortified.

For me, that moment marked the death of romance. Perhaps all of us would do well to be less relaxed in our relationships and leave global warming to the cows.

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