It's maple syrup season. Sunday was an extremely long day in the sugar house and the spousal unit and I were both bushed. As we were heading for home there was, uh, there was a sound. The spousal unit gave me The Look.

"We don't know each other that well," he said. There was a pause. I laughed, which only made things worse, of course. There was another sound.

"We're never going to know each other that well," he grumbled.

And what brought that on?

Cheetos.

There is a sugar house tradition that goes back almost 25 years now and that's Cheetos. Yes, those disgusting fluorescent orange batons of greasy goodness are a tradition in the sugar house during maple syrup season. While I've become alarmingly picky about the healthiness of the food that goes in my mouth, during sugaring season Cheetos get a pass.

Tradition. There are some traditions that simply cannot die.

The only problem is that my system is now used to a diet that's predominantly whole grains, fruits and vegetables. When hit with several handfuls of Cheetos over an afternoon my plumbing rebels.

Actually, my plumbing goes beyond rebelling into full scale insurgency, trying to kill me and everyone around me. This strikes me as overkill considering that we're just talking about Cheetos for crying out loud, but nobody ever said the digestive system is a fair and balanced system.

Yes, I would be talking about gas. Really, the word gas seems a sadly inadequate description of the unbelievably noxious and potent, uh, fragrance that my body uses to vent its disapproval of Cheetos.

Mostly the gas is of the silent but deadly variety. Our sugar arch, the pans that boil off the maple sap, are wood fired. Several times last Sunday I wondered if I would perish is a ball of blue flame when my body decided to vent at the same time as the spousal unit's brother opened the door to the furnace section to toss in some more wood.

I'm guessing everyone else in the sugar house just wanted to die, period. Fortunately, Canadians are an amazingly polite people. No mention was made of the fact that someone was doing an spot on olfactory impersonation of road kill left on a highway for two weeks in the middle of July.

So, anyhow, like I said, my body was venting about the whole Cheetos situation big time. As the spousal unit and I were walking towards home I could feel another, um, eruption coming. I assumed it would be silent but deadly.

It wasn't. It was � it was � audible.

First off, it was not a BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT tuba level sort of venting. It was more of a, uh, more in the region of blowing a raspberry. Definitely audible, yet I think I speak for us all when I say that it was certainly within bounds as these things go.

Still, the spousal unit was deeply offended that I would dare to be audible in his presence. That's when he proclaimed that we didn't know each other that well. Which, of course got me laughing and before I knew it I was in a full belly laugh.

Well, a full belly laugh is good for the soul, but it kind of shakes up the internal organs. My body tossed decorum right out the window and I ended up, uh, playing the tuba, if you catch my drift.

That's when the spousal unit drew his line in the sand, proclaiming that we'd never know each other well enough to make such behaviour permissible. I, of course, could not stop laughing which meant that I could not stop, uh, my rendition of The Little Tuba That Could

Fortunately, sugaring season is almost over and with it Cheetos will again be a thing of the past.

I'm guessing that the spousal unit is counting the days.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 104.88 miles