As a boy, I once owned a whoopee cushion. I thought it hilarious; my aging and extremely "proper" great aunt—God rest her soul—did not, and at one Thanksgiving dinner, she let me know. Chastened, I never used a whoopee cushion again. Nor, as the decades passed, did I think much more about the possible humor value of fake farts.
Until this week, when I came across the strange case of Alexander Paul Robertson Lewis, who has been charged with a felony in South Carolina for—and let me quote from the official police press release here—using "an Internet-acquired spray designed to imitate fecal odor."
The nanny state run amok? The criminalization of fun? Authorities who Just Can't Take A Joke?
Not exactly.
The gas leak that wasn’t
The 32-year-old Lewis worked as a teacher's assistant at the West Florence High School in Florence County, South Carolina. His duties did not, of course, include spraying anything "designed to imitate fecal odor" into the air. But according to police, Lewis was responsible for "creating a foul smell" at the school—not once, but for weeks. It was so dire that multiple students needed medical attention.
The school's administration suspected a gas leak at first. According to local news reports, in mid-August, the school sent an email to parents letting them know that "gas is only used in our school for heating, in the kitchen for food preparation, and in a few of the science labs. Excluding the kitchen, we have turned off all gas to the building as a precaution. This has allowed us to rule out a gas leak as the source of the odor."
The district brought in plumbers to inspect "all lines above the ceilings as well as the propane tank lines for potential gas leaks." It brought in the local gas utility to test for leaks in "hallways, classrooms, rooftops, science labs, propane tanks, natural gas meters, and floor drains in bathrooms." It hired an environmental consultant to do air quality testing. None of these inspections turned up anything untoward.