Atmospheric changes inside caves can unleash winds powerful enough to knock the hat off of a tourist.
But the powerful stench of a young girl's fart in tight quarters can knock tourists unconscious.
According to this woman, one of her first traumatic memories going through puberty was passing serious gas while visiting Mammoth Cave National Park.
The stench was so rancid, it even prompted her clueless mother Karen to behave like the characteristics of the eponymous meme by demanding some answers from their tour guide.
The memory from that episode still haunts Redditor "Amacrum" to this day.
The original poster (OP) shared her gassy story in the TIFU (Today I F*d Up) SubReddit and emphasized that her subterranean tushy cough happened years ago.
"Obligatory this didn't happen today.. It happened about 23 years ago but it was my first traumatic cringe."
"I was twelve. Picture what it would look like if Wednesday Addams really was genuinely dying to get into the Babysitters Club. Yup that's me."
"Having my second period ever, complete with Satan's tsunami of pain and f*ckery happening to my insides."
"My family decided this is when were going to go visit Mammoth Cave National Park. I'm still in that stage when I'm embarrassed by my period/ sure that everyone everywhere just KNOWS it's shark week for me."
"(We're traveling light by my parents insistence so when I need a pad it's off to hassle dad to dig one out of his fanny pack and make the mortified trek to the bathroom. That's it's own tween trauma.)"
"We're taking the cave tour and in one of those really tight places with a horrible name like 'Fat man's death' and all hell is brewing in my gut."
"Audible growling like hellhounds begging to be freed, loud enough for the people next to me to get that shifty eyed wtf look."
"At the time I'm 4'11" maybe a hundred lbs and all that stands between the world and the nuclear bomb in my gut is THE CLENCH."
"I clenched you guys. I clenched through so much of the longest cave system in the world (Google it) and I just couldn't f*ckin do it anymore. I fell victim to the oldest myth we tell ourselves... Just let a lil out. Just a little and I'll feel so much better...."
The proverbial flood gates opened and nothing could prevent the olfactory emission from assaulting everyone's nostrils.
"So I did...And I didn't. I cracked the door, but all the demons escaped. What came out was the most inexplicably silent fart accompanied by the most rancid smell I've ever smelled."
"The kind that immediately makes you think it couldn't possibly have come from your own body... Or any living body."
"Immediately there was shuffling as it hit the polite people around me and they tried to avoid overly embarrassing the green skinned little girl with the demon gut it had to have come from."
Enter the OP's mother, whose name is a popular meme used to insult entitled White women who often complain in public and ask to speak to a manager.
"This is where my mother comes into play. There's one thing you must know about my mother. Her name is Karen. Legend has it she is the original."
@MeghanMcCain Official Know Your Meme Moment: "Meghan" is a Karen with a plus-sized attitude. https://t.co/0SnHyJ2Ncg— Ministry of Information - Cosmopolitan Control🥯 (@Ministry of Information - Cosmopolitan Control🥯)1581525205.0
"If I had a dime for every manager spoken to while her family sat red faced, pleadingly apologizing with their eyes (blink twice for help) I'd be a Scrooge McDuck rich."
The mother inquired the tour guide about the source of the toxic airborne event.
"So here we are stewing in rancid hellfire corpse level stank and my mother asks the poor teenage tour guide (who is trying not to gag) 'Are there Sulfur deposits down here? I smell sulfur.'"
"Silence. A few discreet glances at the miserable little girl from polite strangers."
"No ma'am, no sulfur in this part of the cave system."
"My mother is never wrong. Not even when she's wrong. She insists...'That can't be right. I smell sulfur.'"
"No ma'am. No Sulfur."
"If there was a manager nearby we'd have already been speaking to them. She's getting very upset because she's obviously RIGHT she obviously smells Sulfur and this ridiculous teenager doesn't know what the hell he's taking about."
"The back and forth goes on. Forever. Her insistence that she's right keeps ratcheting up. That poor bastard."
"To his credit he glanced at me, and did the kindest thing that kept me from just completely shriveling up and dying on the spot."
"He plastered a queasy grin on his face and said, 'You know what ma'am maybe there's is Sulfur down here I'm going to double check on that as soon as we get back. Maybe I'll learn something new today.'"
"The cringe was so full on I don't remember anything else about that day. It's a blank."
"On that fateful day I learned never to trust a fart, that cringe that deep in the early tweens leaves a little scar tissue on your soul, and that the kindness of strangers is a very real thing."
And there you have it.
Redditors imagined the horrors of being one of the tourists reckoning with the punishment nobody deserves.
"Farting in a cave is like the ultimate dutch oven. Everybody's just trapped in there with it." – rj4001
Who doesn't love a good fart story?
"I dropped rancid ass in an airplane hangar when in college...It cleared the area immediately around me...then the cloud drifted, but retained sufficient concentration to clear out ANOTHER group across the hangar about 5 minutes later."
"Not gonna lie...I'm pretty proud of that one." – 0xD153A53
"My friend has a story from when he was on a tour bus in Morocco and someone let out a quiet but deadly fart. the tour guide stopped mid sentence and said with a very strong accent "Ah, silent but violent..." – homebrandsoap
"I farted in front of my ex's son. He was startled and asked what the noise was. I told him my butt sneezed. Without missing a beat he says 'oh well then bless you!'"
"That kid is gonna go far." – freyjathebloody
"I'm a second-generation butt duster and man, there are some times I wonder what exists in my gut."
"I went with my mom and step-dad to get a cake for my Sweet 16 and for some reason had some raunchy internals that day. We were talking to the clerk at the bakery when I let out a silent(?) but toxic cloud, which my family, myself, and the clerk all were hit by at once."
"I had to deal with my step-father quietly gagging, my mother turning beet red, and the poor clerk trying to not be ill over the little cake book while simultaneously doing my best not too pee myself from holding in laughter. And it stuck with us the entire time we were there, so about 5 minutes at least."
"I still get a tongue lashing from my mom about that one, she was so embarrassed (I can give her crap now because her colostomy bag likes to be a mini bagpipe)."
"I think that time and the time my charter bus fart managed to make at least 50 other band students sick (including our directors) are tied." – Iradelle
Now, this is a cute catchphrase.
"When our daughter was a toddler my husband used to say 'catch that and paint it green' after a fart. Kids repeat everything and she repeated the phrase in her daycare after she tooted."
"It was a awkwardly funny moment when I picked her up and had to answer-the question. 'What does catch that and paint it green mean?"'– mellentheorchadork
This Redditor believes that clenching is the last thing you should be doing when a toxic storm is brewing in your colon.
"This is honestly how a fart should be dealt with. I have stomach issues, and can't control my farts well. Some days it's just like a machine gun.
"On those bad days, I just start laughing like crazy as my wife just shakes her head. She's gotten used to it, and some times will laugh as well."
"The worst is when you are at work and gotta let one out. But when I'm having stomach issues, some times they'll slip out when I try to head to the bathroom. Some days they'll just slip and make the loudest fart you've ever heard."
"I was standing outside with a few friends once, and it happened. Instantly, everyone just burst out laughing about it."
"Farting isn't something to be ashamed of, and it can actually cause you some damage if you hold it in. I say we should just the wind flow freely, but keep an freshener near you though!" – StrangerFeelings
Conditions inside caves are ideal for some things and not so much for others.
"Caves are usually humid. The moisture in the air traps the fart molecules and it floats in place like a cloud on a windless day. Prime dusting territory. I really need to visit a cave again." – Pi-stache-io
What an epic burn.
"My mom always said she can't fart cause women don't get a**holes til they get married." – DownToFarm
Didn't Karen talk about periods?
"That might explain how you felt about your period too. I felt so comfortable telling people I had it, and especially with my family."
"My dad would buy pads for me often. But, my mom talked about periods from before I can remember, so to me it was just a normal thing before I got it."
"I'm sorry that your mom caused you so much trouble." – boo29may
Which one is worse? The wrath of a Karen, or the fury of the foulest flatulence?
I can't definitively say I've come face to face with the spirits. But I have had some unsettling feelings in the dark. Shadows are just shadows sometimes, but who can be sure.
I hear it...
Nbc Wings GIF by HULUGiphy"I was helping my dad clean my grandma's house after she passed and I went in and was trying to find a song in my phone and before I could I heard a cough plain as day come from down the hallway where her room was. She died of lung and throat cancer it was pretty crazy."
Running Past...
"When I was 5 I remember getting home from my grandpa's birthday party. For context my mom was pregnant with my brother at the time, so my parents had already bought his crib. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a women in a white dress and long black hair standing over my brother's crib. I managed to wake up my dad so he could take me to the bathroom. When I got back it was still there. It was only until morning when it disappeared. Every now and then I see a glance of what I assume is that thing running past the backyard."
The Cat
"My best friend and his wife had moved to a new apartment. I came over to visit a few times, and each time I'd see the motion of a cat in my peripheral vision. Not the image of a cat, but a sense of how a cat moves. Anyway, one day I finally cracked some joke about the ghost cat in the place and his wife was instantly saying "See! See! I told you we had a ghost cat!"
"excuse me"
"I worked graveyard shift in a dementia ward for 4 years and it was anything but quiet. I was working with a nurse one night when we both heard a resident say "excuse me." We looked around and no-one was there. I checked on the resident in question and she was fast asleep in her own room. Many of us also experienced someone whistling in the ward late at night and one nurse even managed to catch a video of it happening. It was unnerving to say the least."
Clueless
Skeleton GIFGiphy"I once saw someone short walk by me in my house. They walked into the laundry room which only has one way in. I walked into it behind them and they where gone. I thought it was my little brother but I went to his room and he was asleep. I still have no clue what that was."
- ImBolio
Now was everyone here positive they were sober? Just asking. Those are certainly spooky moments. I'd like some video footage please. Continue...
Reflections
ghost library GIFGiphy"I was up at 3am when I was maybe 7 or 8. I looked out the window and saw a woman in a white dress run across my yard. I could see through her. She was transparent like the reflections on the window."
"you alright?"
"So, my work place is haunted. I was having a really crap day, and as a cleaner, it's normal that me and my co worker will be the only ones left at night. So I was standing on the second floor, leaning on the banister for the stair case, when I heard this male voice say in my ear "you alright?" Clear as day. I turned around so fast and nobody was there and it scared the hell out of me."
- Rex-the-
Watching Me
"I remember as a young kid I usually use to sit in my bed and watch tv with my room door open while the adjacent guest bedroom next to mine would always have the door shut. I always remember seeing that door fully open and close by itself multiple times a day very slowly and gently. Never really bothered me much now that I think about it… but there were other creepier experiences I had in the same house that made me feel uncomfortable like I was being watched."
Betsy
"I went to the Betsy Ross House as a really little kid in the early 90s. Normal house but I was confused why the tour guide never talked about the woman on the chair crying at the edge of the bed in Betsy Ross's bedroom. So I asked about it. No one else saw the woman at the edge of the bed. I figured it was just a wax museum since there was a wax statue of a man in uniform rolling bullets in the basement."
"Years later, I was looking at haunted Philadelphia tours to go on with a friend and the Betsy Ross House was on it. I was like "woah! I was there!" and looked into it some more. Turns out there is a woman at the end of the bed crying and a uniformed man in the basement that people have reported seeing. There is no way that 8 year old me would have known about either of these things."
hello kitty...
hello kitty lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"I had this hello kitty Balloon In my bed room, it had a string and weight on it. So it was late, I had the lights on just Sitting on my bed. The Balloon turns, faces my door, slowly floats into my hallway and turns and floats into my sister's room. To this day I am scared of balloons."
They are among us and they like Hello Kitty. I'm probably rattling the paranormal cages and they'll come for me next, but I'm ready. I feel like this thread has prepared me.
Boo!
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