A little boy is at a birthday party with his mother, and about ten minutes into the party, the little boy suddenly has to pee. Naturally, he calls for his mother. Once he spots her across the crowded room, he yells, “Mommy, I have to pee!”

The mother, embarrassed by the announcement, quickly walks over, takes the boy to the bathroom, and locks the door behind them.

She turns to the boy and says, “You can’t be yelling across rooms that you need to pee. It’s very rude. How about we have our own codeword? Instead of screaming, ‘I have to pee,’ you say, ‘I have to whisper,’ and then nobody will know what you mean!”

The boy agrees, finishes his business, and rejoins his friends for the rest of the party. He thinks the new codeword is clever and easy to remember. The next night, the boy is staying over at his grandfather’s house. He wakes up in the middle of the night, realizes he has to pee, and quietly walks into his grandpa’s room.

He goes over to the bed and gently wakes him. In a soft voice, the boy says, “Grandpa, I have to whisper.”

The confused grandfather rubs his eyes and answers sleepily, “Not right now. You can whisper in the morning.” The boy starts to squirm nervously beside the bed. “But Grandpa, I really need to whisper.”

Not wanting to get out of his warm, comfortable bed, his grandfather sighs and says, “I said not right now. I’ll whisper all you want in the morning.” The boy starts dancing from one foot to the other, desperately trying to hold it in. “But Grandpa, I reeeaally need to whisper!”

“Well, alright then,” the grandfather finally says, too tired to argue anymore. “Come here and whisper very quietly into your grandpa’s ear.”

My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training, and I was constantly reminding him to tell me whenever he needed to go. One day, we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch between errands. It was extremely busy, with a packed dining room and people sitting at nearly every table.

While enjoying my taco, I suddenly smelled something funny. My first thought was the baby, so I immediately checked my seven-month-old daughter. She was completely clean. Then I remembered that Matt hadn’t asked to go potty in quite a while, and a horrible thought crossed my mind.

I asked him casually, “Matt, do you need to go potty?” He looked at me and simply said, “No.”

I kept thinking, “Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me.” I glanced around nervously, hoping nobody had noticed anything. Then I said, “Matt, are you absolutely sure you didn’t have an accident?”

“No,” he replied confidently. But the smell was getting worse, and I was becoming more convinced that something had gone terribly wrong.

Sooooo… I asked one more time, trying desperately not to draw attention to us. “Matt, did you have an accident?”

Matt suddenly jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over, spread his cheeks, and yelled at the top of his lungs, “SEE, MOM, IT’S JUST FARTS!!!”

For one horrifying second, the entire restaurant seemed to go silent. Then nearly 100 people erupted into laughter, some of them practically choking on their tacos. Meanwhile, Matt calmly pulled up his pants, sat back down, picked up his food, and continued eating as if absolutely nothing had happened.

I was completely mortified. I wanted to disappear under the table, but then some kind elderly people came over and told me I had made their day, thanking me for the best laugh they had had in a very long time. Just when I thought the embarrassment was finally over, another old gentleman stopped us in the parking lot as we were leaving. He bent down to my son, smiled, and said, “Don’t worry, son. My wife accuses me of the same thing all the time… I just never had the nerve to make the point like you did.”