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May 2008
In the Stalls of Power, It’s “Don't Tap, Don't Tell”

Norman Ball On The Struggle for Control of America's Bowels

IN THE LATEST INSTALLMENT OF HIS QUEER bid to retain power, Senator Larry “the Lizard” Craig has reached a compromise of sorts with his unfailingly sanctimonious Senate colleagues. The Senate Sergeant at Arms will forthwith be accompanying Craig on all visits to the Senate restroom whenever the Senator expresses a need to “shake hands with an old friend.” Many are convinced this agreement promises only to unleash torrents of diarrhea and incontinence from the highest reaches of government onto an unsuspecting public as countless civil servants line up to flush simultaneously.

Constitutional scholars are cautiously withheld. Said one, “frankly, what a duly elected official chooses to do in the privy should remain privy; that is, best left to be handled between himself, his God, his illicit gay lovers and his Political Action Committee.”

Surprising many avid potty-watchers, the Republican majority (at the time anyway) pointedly excluded public restrooms from the sweeping new surveillance powers of Patriot Act II, prompting many to ask whether this was a genuine oversight or the cynical erection of a phalanx of safe havens notorious for being short on toilet paper—and long on Republican loiterers.

Astounding as it may seem, public restrooms house the last remaining cubicles of free expression in America. Surprising many avid potty-watchers, the Republican majority (at the time anyway) pointedly excluded public restrooms from the sweeping new surveillance powers of Patriot Act II, prompting many to ask whether this was a genuine oversight or the cynical erection of a phalanx of safe havens notorious for being short on toilet paper—and long on Republican loiterers. There’s no question Republicans have traditionally applied a broad interpretive litmus to public restrooms, which is at odds with their socially conservative (typically missionary) position on other issues. Asked this very question, former President Bill Clinton, himself no stranger to right-wing conspiracies, replied, “shit if I know” before bounding off to deposit some old beer of his own.

Known for encouraging a sort of awkward elbow-to-elbow camaraderie, urinals do enjoy a measure of jocular support. So perhaps a wide stance is warranted. But frankly, whether a guy chooses to make a looping figure-eight, take aim at the American Standard logo or recite baseball stats over his shoulder while pointing Percy at the porcelain, surely he is entitled to his own expressive idiosyncrasies. So hands off Justice Thomas and keep that Coke can where everyone can see it! If only Craig had shaken his Idahoan potato-stick in a proper line-up of god-fearing, bladder-relieving men, we wouldn’t be sharing this awkward reading moment together. But we are. So there.

Oddly enough, the Senate compromise threatened to stall in the wee hours when Craig insisted he”'had to wee really really bad.” (The early ground rules had prohibited Craig from using the facilities prior to banging out a sweet deal, even if the ostensible reason for the visit was a really big wizz.)

According to one loose-lipped source (Deep Throat 2), the commodus operandi will work on a “need to go basis” and will conform to the following strict regimen: all bathroom visits “expressly to the Senate urinals will remain fully in the capable and familiar hands of Craig himself.” To expedite matters, Senator Craig will signal to the Sergeant for a “number one” or “number two” by holding up the requisite number of fingers at the back of the Senate chamber. Should Craig ever depart from a stated number one visit—midstream or otherwise—and elect instead to troll “in, near or around” a Senate stall, not only will his wet shoes be a dead giveaway, but he will be jeered at vociferously by a bipartisan coalition of all-male Senate colleagues who hanker, compulsively it seems, for fresh new ways to lower the tenor of the national debate despite gratuitous grandstanding to the contrary.

For his part, Craig has agreed to wear Dr. Scholl's reinforced rubber insoles to mitigate any sounds that could be falsely construed, in the words of his attorney, as “inadvertent lewd and lascivious tapping.”

For his part, Craig has agreed to wear Dr. Scholl's reinforced rubber insoles to mitigate any sounds that could be falsely construed, in the words of his attorney, as “inadvertent lewd and lascivious tapping.” Asked to comment on the largely testosterone-dictated compromise, Senator Dianne Feinstein—former mayor of San Francisco and by some reliable accounts a woman—sighed “at their best, boys will be girls.” Senator Barbara Mikulski expressed a far more wistful envy in her observations: “I wouldn't touch this barge-pole with an undercover sting—though there are many times I wish I had a barge-pole.”

Social commentators are reporting a great silent pall has befallen America's men's restrooms in the wake of Senator Craig's fey missteps. Watching her husband shuffle reluctantly into a local mall restroom, clutching a Soldier of Fortune magazine, Mrs. Sally Loo noted ruefully, “Normally I hate it when he drags his feet. Today though, I understand. Some small crevice of trust, his very manhood, has been frontally assaulted. It'll be a long time before I castigate him again for wearing out the soles of perfectly good shoes.”

Other Americans were quick to render their graffiti-laced verdict. In a refrain observed at Joe's Truck Stop (I-81, Exit 23b, stall #3), one constipated wag scrawled, just to the left of the ubiquitous Seymour Butts drawing:

If the Sarge hears no tinkling
that's surely an inkling
the Senator's clearly amiss.

(Meet me at 7 October 11
right here where you're sitting.
Love, Chris)

Great bowels of fire and God bless (or is it help) America!!

 


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