a real bad case

I forgot to tell this story even to Sarah, so here, I will tell it to you people:

Yesterday a student came in to see me. She is a new student. Her boyfriend sat next to her and then started, as I spoke to this woman, to poke at the stuff on my desk. I have a jar of bamboo shoots leftover from martinis which I brought in for spearing fruit, and he took one, then several, which I ignored. He then made a face and said, while his girlfriend was asking me a question, "I got a real bad case of gas." Beat. "Real bad." She looked at him, appalled. "Why do you always do this?" he said. "Don't get...jeez."