I’ve debated whether or not I should even write this Kodak Moment, as it’s not really one of my own. It rightfully belongs to a young man with whom I went to high school, a young man whom my friend Jenny once called the Filipino Tom Cruise.

Filipino Tom Cruise has a name, but for his protection I won’t say what it is. All we ever need to know is that Filipino Tom Cruise was a veritable cutie, a popular hottie, and hands down the big man on campus back in those days, and he was naturally invited to Jenny’s 18th birthday party, which lasted well into the wee hours of the morning and beyond.

I was at Jenny’s party from beginning to end and actually sort of co-hosted it part of the time, so I saw this Kodak Moment firsthand; it happened after the DJ and the majority of the guests left, and a smaller group of guests stayed to watch movies and play a bit of Pictionary. We were a rowdy bunch by that time, the guys especially, and we went from playing the game in a civilized manner, following all of the rules and ritually turning the time piece, to playing a lazy and boisterous game of charades.

The guys would take a Pictionary card, find a word they liked, and try to act it out as we girls guessed what they were trying to convey. Filipino Tom Cruise, of course, took his turns just like the rest of the guys, all of whom tried to outdo each other in getting the girls to laugh at their silly overly physical charades.

We all totally lost it, though, when Filipino Tom Cruise tried to act out the word flip. I’m sure he meant for us to laugh and that in his mind the whole charade would have been comical, with him flat on his back, bouncing up into the air, flipping, and landing flat on his front, sort of like a fish on land or something. And that in itself was funny, when you consider the sight of Tom Cruise, Filipino or otherwise, flopping around like a fish just for the halibut hell of it. The facial expressions going with that kind of movement would have been enough to slay most of us there.

But no, things didn’t quite go as Filipino Tom Cruise had planned.

The poor guy. Just as he flipped and landed on his front, he let out a little fart, adding to the little charade. It was such a cute and tiny little fart, though, that I completely missed the sound (apparently I have a herring hearing problem), even as I laughed at his antics. Still, everyone else heard it and laughed harder than they’d ever had, and when I realized what I’d missed, I laughed harder, too. I felt bad for him, but I couldn’t help laughing. All the guys started imitating his flip, making fart noises with their mouths as they did so, and in later turns they would harken back to it if the word at hand was even remotely like flip.

“Flip!” we’d say.

“No,” one of the guys would say after imitating Filipino Tom Cruise’s charade almost exactly, “it’s flop!”

Poor, poor Filipino Tom Cruise. I don’t know if he was ever able to live it down with the guys afterwards. That may well have been the most embarrassing moment in his entire life. Heck, it even beats the worst of mine.

Well, almost.

By the way, speaking of flopping around like a fish and farting, has anyone read Dave Barry’s latest?

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