The telltale fart.

One of my favorite stories of all time is Edgar Allan Poe's The Telltale Heart. I'm sure you know it: it's the one in which a young man murders his landlord and then hides the body inside his house, only to be driven to a psychotic confession when the heart of his victim continues to beat loudly beneath the floorboards -- audible only to him, the perpetrator of the crime. The story is a masterpiece, a brilliant portrayal of the way that one's entire sense of reality can be distorted by the knowledge of one's own guilt.

Which leads me to this:

I was sitting at my desk this afternoon -- the sun dipping below the horizon, quittin' time approaching fast --when the quesadilla I'd eaten for lunch gave a sudden kick in my stomach.

Whoa, I thought, immediately standing up and making a beeline for the hallway, and beyond it, the safety of the bathroom. I'd better take a time out before something bad happens.

I walked briskly down the hall, stepping past another employee with a polite "Excuse me", and was nearly out the door when he suddenly looked back at me.

"Hey," he said, "did you fart?"

What???

My mouth dropped open. I stared at him, aghast. He was looking expectantly at me. I surreptitiously sniffed at the air, trying to look like I had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, sure, maybe a little something had slipped out -- but not that much! It hadn't even made a sound! There was no smell! How did he even know? Had it been noticeable somehow?

And even if it was, (I thought, beginning to get angry), who the fuck was this guy to be pointing it out? Didn't he have anything better to do than wander the office hallways, trying to catch someone in a flatulent act and then shame them into an admission? What was his fucking problem?

He was still looking at me.
"Uh," I said, looking around awkwardly and shifting from one foot to another, "I, um..."

I was caught. I stopped and took a deep breath, ready to bite the bullet and admit it. Yes, I DID, I was about to say, and I would APPRECIATE IT if you didn't go around POINTING IT OUT like some kind of FART POLICE. I had opened my mouth to speak when a woman suddenly answered from behind me.

"Actually, it's five-thirty," she said.
Fart Police said, "Wow, I didn't realize how late it had gotten!"

It was at this point that I realized that the man had not, in fact, said, "Did you fart?"
He had said, "Is it five yet?"

I still cannot believe that my nervousness over my volatile stomach somehow distorted a perfectly-innocuous question about the time into an unprompted accusation of flatulence.

But more than that, I cannot believe I was going to confess.