Fart Putty, it sure ain’t what it used to be.
A couple of Saturdays ago, I went out in search of soap-bubbles. The stuff they’re made out of, I mean. We needed a lot of it, and fast, by noon that Monday.
After some internet research, off I went to the big party-paraphernalia store on Potrero Ave. Aaahhhh, success and easy score! They sold bubble soap by the half gallon jug!
However, there was something labelled “FLARP Noise Putty” on the next shelf over.
Fart Putty, aka Noise Putty, aka Rude Putty, is a wad of some kind of putty-ish synthetic in a plastic cylinder the size of a film can, which you poke and knead and prod with your finger and thumb; air gets caught in it and then blows out, creating a variety of hilarious, ill-mannered and imbecilic sounds better imagined than described. When my boyfriend’s co-worker Laureen first introduced me to the stuff, I played around with hers and laughed semi-hysterically for half an hour. Three days later I had found my own little tubful of chortles. It was a fun toy, and delightfully oafish.I lost it eventually, like one does with little crap novelties.
But that was a decade ago. Saturday two weeks ago, right beside the half-gallon-jugs-of-bubbles shelf, was Fart Putty, albeit labelled FLARP Loud Putty in its current incarnation of packages of four little tubs, in four different colors. Perfect party favors for a kid’s birthday bash. And it only cost four bucks for a four-pack! With a madman’s grin on my face, I snapped up some quondam Fart Putty along with my big bait of bubble base.
My glee in purchase lasted until the moment after I got home.Once there, I eagerly chose the plastic pot of yellow putty (about the same shade as government cheese), got it opened, and plunged my digits avidly into the mass of muck.
But, oooh no! And Yikes! And just what is this horseshit? Things have gone way downhill in the decade since I last played with Rude Putty. They must’ve changed the original recipe for a version made with cheaper and inferior ingredients.
It was thinner and gooey-er and much, much stickier than the original. Instead of making rude gastrointestinal noises when i poked and prodded it, the bogus Noise Putty squirted out of its tub and then stuck to my finger. Horribly so. It just stuck to that finger, a yellow wad the texture of thick snot that felt like guts. I had sudden panicky thoughts of The SCP Foundation – this wasn’t Fart Putty at all, it was some awful parasitic or predatory fondue cheese! The drippy sticky mess actually seemed to grow larger as I looked, and it was getting on my shirt and jeans, and just…just AAAAGGGGHHHH!
That was when my boyfriend asked me what was wrong. Wordlessly I displayed my index finger and the clot of counterfeit Rude Putty consuming me like The Blob itself.
“So go wash your hands” he told me. He’s smart like that. Pragmatic. I went to the sink and wiped my thumb and finger with one, then two, then five alcohol steri-wipes, then followed up with soap and hot water. Nay, hotter water! Hotter than my hands had ever felt themselves washed in before!
It was an icky, un-nerving experience, but I learned a valuable lesson that Saturday afternoon. And it wasn’t even wasted money – come Monday I gave the other three tubs of fake Fart Putty to the three people I wanted to prank a little nastily.