The long and shart of it

Came across a playful, made-up noun the other day that I hadn’t seen before.

The writer, d’un certain âge, complained that she had lately been victimized by a “shart.”

Took me a second or two to grasp that a shart must be an abominable concoction halfway between a shit and a fart. As a verb, the same pliable (semi-liquid) appellation means to accidentally expel feces while breaking wind.

I’ll leave the adjectival and adverbial forms to your imagination.

Not the classiest of topics, but it set me to thinking about other possible portmanteaux applicable to the full “Golden Years Happy Hour” menu, including appetizers, soups and salads, entrées and desserts.

Are you experienced?

No. 30 — Snoozequake – the involuntary head-drop nap that strikes without warning. No. 29 — Groanstand – the loud vocalization required just to stand up. No. 28 — Creackle – the mysterious symphony of creaks + crackles when moving joints. No. 27 — Misplaceritis – the chronic condition of losing things already in your hand. No. 26 — Scrolliosis – the permanent forward-neck bend from cellphones, tablets and laptops. No. 25 — Blinknesia – forgetting why you entered a room, somewhere between the doorway and the light switch. No. 24 — Weatherknee – joints that predict rain with greater accuracy than Environment Canada. No. 23 — Napcident – accidentally falling asleep during something you meant to stay awake for. No. 22 — Decafear – the anxiety that caffeine will ruin your day and decaf will ruin your will to live. No. 21 — Foget – the experience of being halfway between forgetting and losing it entirely (“I had a total foget walking into the kitchen.”)

No. 20 — Crapnea – waking yourself up because you stopped breathing and trusted a fart (a possible rival to shart, but with less immediate consciousness). No. 19 — Disasturbance – injuring yourself during something extremely non-sexual, like sneezing or turning. No. 18 — Trumpnesia – forgetting what you were saying mid-sentence and pretending it was intentional (a more alarming corollary to blinknesia, though if you can surround yourself with enough well-paid lickspittles and sycophants, fawners and toadies, everyone will pretend not to notice). No. 17 — Fartattack – a sudden gas event after watching the TV news that causes panic, clenching and prayer (cloudy with a chance of sharts). No. 16 — Creakdown – when your joints make so much noise people think something snapped (escalation of weatherknees and creackles). No. 15 — Pisscalculation – overestimating how long you can “hold it” on a car ride or while waiting in line at the checkout counter. No. 14 — Napocalypse – lying down “for a minute” and waking up three hours later in a new time zone, possibly with a different spouse. You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” No. 13 — Bendregret – the immediate remorse after picking something up off the floor. No. 12 — Shamezing – amazing strength or agility achieved only in a bathroom emergency (shatmergency averted). No. 11 — Collapsear – half collapse, half sit, fully intentional denial.

No. 10 — Rectastrophe – a lower-GI event that escalates faster than anticipated. No. 9 — Urethralyptica – the sudden, world-ending urgency to pee with zero warning (no time for even a slight pisscalculation). No. 8 — Synapshit – when a neural signal fails mid-thought and the sentence just … dies (I’ll bet you thought this was going to be just another shartstorm). No. 7 — Lumbarassment – lower-back pain that humiliates you in public. No. 6 — Sphincterprise – trusting a fart and discovering new anatomy (oh, the duodenum’s connected to the jejunum, the jejunum’s connected to the ileum …). No. 5 — Arthrogroanosis – involuntary vocalizations caused by joint movement (groanstanding while sitting). No. 4 — Vasovagal oops – nearly fainting from standing, coughing or existing. No. 3 — Cerebrodrift – the brain slowly floating away from the topic at hand (locus classicus: a shitnesic president suddenly deciding to absentmindedly stare out the window and turn his back on high-powered executives during a high-stakes meeting over how to divvy up another country’s plundered oil). No. 2 — Pelviction – a desperate waddle caused by competing bladder and bowel demands (having discomfort down to a fine shart, thus bringing us back to where this all started). No. 1 — Nocturiurge – waking up repeatedly at night to decide if you really have to pee or if waiting five minutes will make a difference (pro tip: it won’t).