Molly Murphy's Bacchus Feast & Birthday Stories

The big deal on the menu was the decadently titled “Bacchus Feast,” which conjured up visions of endless platters of exotic fruits and meats, possibly served by a horde of sumptuous women who would sit about your ankles, attending to your every desire.
Not gonna happen, Farmer Joe.
Rather, an assortment of busy characters gather reluctantly at the kitchen doors and sing and chant and carry your tray of food to your table, make a general ruckus, taunt your wife and children, and then disappear.
More interesting for us, was watching the portions dwindle over the years, not to mention the quality of the meat.  I’m no Julia Child, but it doesn’t take a stray hound to know the smell of bad meat.
And thus, an idea was born.

It must have been a Saturday afternoon - Marv and I were at the mall, and we stopped by Spencers…….where all the really cool 16-year old chicks hang out, right?  Anyway, I buy this can of "Fart Spray" and we figure we'll have some fun that night at the restaurant making everybody think someone farted.  Hee hee, ho ho.
So, we wait until Mickey Ratt is carrying the Bacchus Feast (yes children, there was a time when you could get him to do some of the lifting), and I pull this can out and spray his coattails.

And it doesn't smell like a fart.
No sir, it smells like somebody just backed the neighborhood septic truck into your living room and hit "Empty."  Just the foulest thing you can imagine.

So, Ratt starts squeeking "ewwww, something stinks" and everybody else has these peculiar looks on their faces.
Another Bacchus Feast comes.
Another spray on Ratt.  Somehow we got him to carry the next one.
And then another one.

By now, everybody is trying to figure out where that putrid smell is coming from - it's just about to take over the whole restaurant.  And the Bacchus Feast is starting to seem like a meal that should be avoided tonight.
Gypsy [Robin Baker] thinks the drain in the floor by the front waiter's station is backing up.  I guess that's the general area where the "spraying" took place on each Feast, and she is convinced it's coming from the drain - that the sewer backed up in there, or something.

So now we start spraying the floor by the drain every time we walk by.
Half the people are sniffing the floor, and the other half are sniffing all the Feast meat.
And I'm sure Ratt is wondering if it might be time to launder that costume.
And this goes on halfway into the night.

By now, there are about four of us in on the joke, and laughing so hard we can barely even spray the can anymore.

Well, the management started talking about closing the front tables and calling in an emergency plumber, so I took them aside and confessed what was going on.....really didn't feel like getting fired over that, you know.  All was forgiven, and I handed over the can, and the smell from the drain magically went away.

And some nights, when the moon is just right, Gypsy Robin can still be found wandering the property at 1100 South Meridian, sniffing the ground, searching........ever searching...........      - Darren Stone