Last week I rambled on a bit about how our bodies have these fine senses and some special instincts and intuitions. Like, how does our bum know when to stop when we are sitting on the toilet?
How does your hand know where the door handle is even if you are not looking at it?
It all seemed to me to come down to lots of practice and muscle memory.
But there is something else that happens from time to time and it is a reaction from our body to someone else's actions that we just don't seem to have any control over.
For now please keep your thoughts as to what that might be above the belt.
It can happen at home, in the office, on a bus, in a movie theatre or pretty much anywhere else for that matter. Sometimes just the mention of the word yawn will have people putting hand to mouth to try to cover their own sympathetic yawn.
If you have ever been in a meeting or had people over and you see someone yawn, your body often seems to react in sympathy with a yawn of its own.
It has even happened to people when they see someone yawn on a TV or movie screen.
Their bodies seem to have this compulsion to have a yawn of their own.
It is easy to cover the yawn with "sorry, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night."
Everyone nods as if to say, "that's OK," except maybe uncle Bob who was telling the boring story when the yawn appeared.
And it doesn't matter how many times you yawn. People will always excuse it and may even take some sympathy, saying, "poor Mick. Maybe you'll get a good sleep tonight."
Then I got to wondering why it is that our bodies mimic yawns and thought about what would happen if our bodies mimicked other functions.
What if our we had the physical compulsion to copy someone when they broke wind, or burped. I can't include sneezing here as this is often excused just as easily as a yawn with the excusatory "Bless you."
There is certainly no "Bless You" when you fart.
But why not? I guess I would have to find some religious historical scholar to ask the question, "why is it that the church discriminates between bodily functions only blessing sneezes and not farts or burps."
These, as with yawns, can be very hard to prevent at times, and as with the yawn they are not something that people particularly want to do, especially with others around.
OK, some guys do take pleasure in some of these activities, but not generally while sitting at the table with the in laws visiting. But a yawn, no problem.
There is no sympathy if you break wind or burp at the table as there is with the yawn.
There is no "poor Mick. Maybe you'll get rid of your gas tonight and won't stink up the dinner table tomorrow. But you go ahead and fart away to your little heart's content."
And as with the yawn what would that be like if there were sympathetic toots. Would your Brussels sprouts gas cause a chain reaction at the dinner table. This would not be entirely good if it was the first time you were being introduced to future mother and father-in-law.
But if it did happen, over time would it be excused and tolerated like yawns.
Half way through dinner someone expels a hint of noxious fumes and everyone else at the table has this sudden compulsion to join in. But as with the yawn where you generally have to see it to be compelled to join in, would you have to hear the fart to be compelled, and would it be possible to squeeze a little harder and prevent it just as you may try to clench your jaw muscles to prevent the yawn.
Could you put your hand over it like with a yawn to make it seem more polite and excusable.
But how would that work. Usually you have a sympathetic yawn if you see someone yawn. Generally you don't get this if you hear the yawn, as a lot of yawns are silent.
What if it happened at city council meetings or in a movie theatre or hockey game?
What if someone had too much pop before council meeting and suddenly there is a chain reaction of sympathetic burps throughout council chambers. It would certaily make the meetings more interesting.
Although I think it would be very funny it would probably only be good for a short amount of time. After all a yawn is not usually accompanied with the scent of half-fermented sprouts.
However, there is always the possibility of flash mob farts. You run into a busy restaurant break wind, run back outside and watch the chain reaction and facial reactions from the comfort of the street outside.
It gets the mind to thinking.
