Burping issues

Boy Blunder is a lot of amazing things – but this week I’m going to talk to you about a deep flaw… I have issues burping. Does that mean I can’t burp? Or does that mean I can’t stop burping? The answer is: both. I only found the ability to burp from the age of 33, so let me split up the issues as before and after.

Pre thirty-three

For the majority of my life, I haven’t been a burper. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but that’s just the way it’s been. Surely, my mother should be to blame – she must not have burped me as a child and so I’ve carried this deep dark secret upon myself. It’s been a cold, dark and lonely world. Was it too much to just rub my back as a baby, ma?

I’m no scientist, but I wonder if my inability to burp resulted in my excessive hiccupping. If one of my two readers happen to be a doctor (or simply intelligent), please give me answers. Either way, I got hiccups far too easily. Sip of a fizzy drink, and I’d be spending the entire month hiccupping along. For a while nothing I did was able to rid me of hiccups – be it knocking back a pint of water or having someone scare the bejesus out of me.

Then, I met someone in university who had a strange way for getting rid of hiccups. Thinking back, I think Clive was taking the piss with his antidote. His cure was for me to hold my breath, close my eyes, put a finger in each ear, and swallow three times. And it worked! Who’s laughing now Clive? Although, I probably shouldn’t have done it when on the move – giving myself concussion by walking into a lamppost certainly wasn’t my greatest moment.

Besides the hiccups, there was also the weird bubbling, gurgling noise my chest/throat/stomach made when I was bloated and couldn’t burp. I don’t actually know where it came from, all I know is that I wasn’t able to have a quiet moment with any date without the moment being ruined. It was like there was a tiny monster trying to escape – not including the one in my pants. The only way to avoid anything being heard was to keep talking without leaving any gaps or pauses. As you can imagine, it wasn’t Boy Blunder’s finest years with the ladies.

And so, it ended with having to occasionally force myself to burp. I wish I could tell you that it was a dignified method. This mainly consisted of me crouching over a toilet bowl with my finger deep in my mouth to get the gas to come up. But not too long to make me physically throw up, there was a fine balance. However, in time the finger became 2 fingers, then 2 fingers became 3, and eventually I was shoving my entire fist in my mouth – feeling turned on yet, fellas?

Post thirty-three

One day everything changed. I don’t know what it was but all of a sudden I was able to burp! You know that scene in The Simpsons where Homer miraculously grows hair and runs around Springfield celebrating? That was me – only running AND burping.

However, it soon dawned on me that I have no control of the burping. A new monster has been unleashed. So now after pretty much anything I eat or drink, I burp and burp and burp until I have ruined the good Boy Blunder name. Be it whilst presenting at an important meeting at work, whilst burping my newborn baby girl – who gets a bit confused as to who the burping is for, or whilst making sweet, sweet love to my wife – I just can’t seem to get past this.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about those small, soft, almost cute burps – I’m talking full on violent roars that can probably be heard within a 10 mile radius. Adding to it is a lingering smell of what was eaten for lunch – I never thought the smell of a kebab would be associated with so much trauma.

There is only one logical explanation – I have been cursed. The curse of the burp. So, if anyone knows how to deal with the burping, I’m all ears – help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. Maybe I should just accept my fate and burp into the sunset.