Bob took his marbles home

It would be a shame to miss the Sam and Bob show tomorrow. Bob stormed out, being distressed by repeated use of a certain sound-effect. The following is a quotation lifted from the Merck Manual entry on "flatus": "Despite the flammable nature of the H2 and CH4 in flatulence, working near open flames is not hazardous. Children have been known to make a game of expelling gas over a match flame. However, gas explosion, rarely with fatal outcome, has been reported during jejunal and colonic surgery and even when diathermy was used during endoscopic procedures in poorly evacuated patients." At the bottom of the Merck page on this symptom is to be found this: "The following piece appeared in the Gastrointestinal section of past editions of The Merck Manual, and is being reprinted here because of reader demand." It goes on: "Flatulence, which can cause great psychosocial distress, is unofficially described according to its salient characteristics: (1) the "slider" (crowded elevator type), which is released slowly and noiselessly, sometimes with devastating effect; (2) the open sphincter, or "pooh" type, which is said to be of higher temperature and more aromatic; (3) the staccato or drumbeat type, pleasantly passed in privacy; and (4) the "bark" type (described in a personal communication) is characterized by a sharp exclamatory eruption that effectively interrupts (and often concludes) conversation. Aromaticity is not a prominent feature. Rarely, this usually distressing symptom has been turned to advantage, as with a Frenchman referred to as "Le Petomane," who became affluent as an effluent performer who played tunes with the gas from his rectum on the Moulin Rouge stage." At any rate, it would be a shame to miss tomorrow's show. Whatever Bob Cole thought that anyone else may or may not have been engaging in excessively, others might think that he resorted incessantly to the word "poot," new to these ears and gladly never heard again.