The world is no longer flat

Introduction. It has come to my attention recently, a fact so staggering, so mind shattering, that it has caused me to question my system of beliefs and morals. It is a fact, among few, in the highest classes of intellectual context. Topics such as love, religion, and politics all pale in comparison to this single, daunting, and fatally absolute truth:

Some people don't know when they're going to fart.

Now for those of you that are dismissing this as a childish editorial on par with the classic novel "Everyone Poops," I urge you to continue reading.

Definition. Yes, I have learned that some people don't know when they're going to fart. It's really not something that I've thought all that deeply before. I had assumed that everyone else was just like me, in which any given fart, or "element of flatulance" if you will, came with a certain subset of unplanned, but quite definite and noticeable, warning signs. Now I'm not even going to attempt to list out the entire set of warning signs, as the list is neither definable nor appropriate for public reading, but I think it's safe to say that anything from slight intestinal ramblings to flat out assus explosus ("explosion of the ass") qualifies. Regardless of the warning signs, the important point here is that the warnings, regardless of their origin or magnitude, always preclude any given moment of flatulance. This is a known fact. No one has come out and stated it, nor has anyone challenged it. I'm fairly certain no studies have been done on it, and I'm not even convinced anyone has thought about it before to the level of which it has disturbed me. Yet, in one quick sentence by a well-educated and strong-willed person, one short burst of words, my constant and never changing view was shattered. My world was no longer flat.

Denial. This just can't be. There is no sound reason to believe that an event as powerful and memorable as farting can "just happen." It goes against science, and I don't want to be the one to go against science! Yet still, I've been re-assured that this can, and quite often, does happen. It can't be! I refuse to take this as truth, but I find myself wondering how else to know for sure. There's no baseline for testing something like this. It's unthinkable. Even if there were a baseline, how large would the sample set have to be? How would it be precisely monitored and recorded? How could false positives such as bean dip or tainted pancakes be accounted for? Proving or disproving this is simply not feasible.

Acceptance and reflection. Okay, so I can' disprove this fact. Yes, it goes against everything I know and believe in, and yes, I'm basing all of this on one person's portrayal of the truth, but I am a logical person, and if I can't disprove something, I can't say that it isn't true. The truly disturbing portion of this little intellectual discovery of mine is really a second-order realization: if some people can't foresee, acknowledge, and possibly prevent something as elementary and obvious as a brewing fart in its stages of pre-release, what other things are people not able to notice, predict, or prevent? More importantly, is the converse true? Am I missing something that everyone else understands and accepts? As an example, something that I think about from time to time: do wombats spontaneously combust becoming projectile rodents, causing imminent death unless quickly avoided by means of an acrobatic leap to the left or right? What if I'm the guy that gets killed by the flaming wombat? Folks will hear about it on the evening news offering me the same level of pity that they did to the woman who was, apparently unseen and unpredicted by her inner thoughts, burned by hot coffee she had just purchased from a fast food restaurant. They'll say, "What a dumb shit. How could he not see that coming? Hell, it had flames shooting out of it."

Closing. The world is no longer flat... random and unpredictable flatulance is everywhere... and I will be on the lookout for flaming wombats.