[Editor’s Note: We’re trying to get Andy Killinger to write more news stories in addition to his usual diatribes and rants. This is what we got.]
CALGARY, Alberta – Canadian businessman Flatus B. Smelt shipped his first load of Northern Winds Premium Canadian Farts to Beijing in the People’s Republic of China. Retail sales should begin by the fourth quarter of the year. Based on the enthusiastic response of focus groups, the product should sell out immediately.
Mr. Smelt said that he got the idea on a business trip to Beijing. The always heavy air pollution was unusually severe during his stay and he observed quite a few people carrying portable oxygen bottles that were used to prevent fainting and coughing spells. His initial thought was to bring in tanks of compressed Canadian Rockies air. However, he found that if a long-term Beijing resident breathed truly clean air the shock to the person’s lungs could be deadly.
In traditional Chinese medicine a practitioner smells a person’s farts to help make a diagnosis of his or her digestive and overall health. Mr. Smelt accidentally cut a really big one in a roomful of Chinese and much to his surprise they started smiling and taking big gulps of air. It seems they considered breathing a Canadian fart to be a huge improvement over Beijing air. This gave Mr. Smelt the inspiration for his new product. After a series of tests and solving some production glitches, full-scale manufacturing began. He wants to have a large supply on hand for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The raw material for Northern Winds is collected at a number of Calgary saloons. Customers are offered half-price Moosepeace beer if they will sit in specially designed chairs that have a vacuum attachment in the bottom cushion. Once the urge to rip one off comes, the customer pushes a red button on the arm of the chair that activates the vacuum pump. This minimizes the amount of air sucked in with the fart and makes it easier to purify and concentrate the gas. This has proved to be a godsend for unemployed oil and gas workers who are running out of beer money.
