“I have a confession,” I told my boyfriend of not-yet a month. We were sitting in Knutes, hashing out a game of Bananagrams. “I’m slightly lactose intolerant.”

This would not have been a big deal had it not been for the fact that I had eaten two very large slices of pizza topped with extra ricotta cheese the day before. I don’t know for sure that I’m lactose intolerant, but I do know that dairy simply doesn’t sit well with me — it gives me gas.

Earlier that night, I was alone in my apartment, leaking grade-two diesel fuel and debating whether or not I should call my boyfriend and tell him that I was feeling “ill” and that he should stay home. Ill is such a lady-like term, much less disgusting than “belching hazmat materials from rear.”

But before I could tell him, my phone glowed with a text saying that he would at my house soon. So I went into auto-pilot, first lighting a candle and then starting dinner, which was spaghetti. As I began to mince garlic, I realized how potent it smells. Perfect, I thought, if I can fill the kitchen with “nose-blinding” aromas, I can mask the smell of my own gas.

I also chopped half an onion, its clear juice dripping from its pearled layers and clawing into my eyes, nose and pores. What if, I thought, I took the other half of this onion and rubbed it all along my body? Thankfully, common sense took over before I fully formed the idea — I didn’t want to reek from my own gas, but I didn’t want to smell like an onion, either.

Then, I saw an orange on the countertop and remembered the lingering smell of citrus after I ate an orange or clementine. So I took a knife and slivered off pieces of orange rind and slipped them into each of my jean pockets. I had made myself into a walking air freshener.

I then perfumed and lathered myself with lotion so thoroughly that I felt like I had just been to the mall and sprayed every single perfume on to my wrist. I was ready — a concoction of garlic, onion, orange, mango, Vera Wang, and Sonoma Weekend Escape.

My boyfriend came, we ate dinner, I frequented the hallway to fart and then we decided to go to Knutes for a few drinks. I thought this was great idea — a public place where there would be plenty of people to blame for my gas. Even better still, we sat next to a door where people exited so there was a nice draft.

Sitting at Knutes, I considered the night a success. Then my boyfriend looked up from his plastic tile letters and told me that for whatever reason, he stopped in the hallway to fart in my roommate’s bedroom. And I had been concerned about disgusting him.

Several minutes later, I told him that I had stuffed orange peels in all of my pockets to hide my own stench.

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