Take it sitting down

I returned from the bathroom to my keyboard, having quickly supplanted one urge with another. In those few minutes, I had decided that I could no longer waste readers’ times with another forgettable article aimed at eliciting a few inexpensive laughs, while a topic of major importance was gurgling beneath my summit ready to explode. And it is a subject I have meant to address many times before, but had always relegated it to my burgeoning “Later” file.

No more! This is something that must be discussed now! And even though it is a matter that related directly to males, it should be of some secondary importance to females as well. I’m talking about the “Twin Leaks,” the “Double Elimination Toilet Tournament,” Urinary Bifurcation, or more descriptively, the inability of middle-aged men, during urination, to emit a solitary stream. Actually, I may be a bit too presumptuous. Since I haven’t mustered the energy or nerve to survey others in my decrepit demographic group, it’s possible that I may be the sole victim of this affliction, but I’m willing to bet otherwise. It has been happening to me for the past couple of years, and each instance seems to be exponentially more aggravating than the prior one. Usually, it’s a horizontal release, so generally what happens is that I produce a stream that goes straight and one that ventures 90 degrees to the left or right, but occasionally, I manage, involuntarily of course, two 90-degree mini-gushers, either of which necessitates a clean-up of the sides of the bowl and sometimes the surrounding area. I’ve tried various types of manual manipulations and adjustments that I feel sure you will not want me to describe, all to no avail. I’ve had a 90-degrees-plus incident, which resulted in the front of my pants getting soaked at work one day, which I attempted to disguise by slashing basin water on my pants area above the danger zone, so I would simply explain it away as an accident subsequent to overly powerful spigot pressure. Fortunately, I’ve had no vertical mishaps, which would have necessitated my investing in disposable coveralls and even goggles.

I have considered the remedial option of some sort of funnel, but it would have to be custom made, and I can’t envision my being measured for it, or for that matter, going through the humiliation of the supplier smugly recommending a thimble with a hole in the end.

Ironically, this disorder has not caused me any trouble in public urinals, so far, since the single apparatuses have sufficient separation between them and the trough type does no more than offer a tantalizing lateral distance challenge, but with the added danger of physical retribution, should I prove to be a poor marksman: “Did you just pee on me, boy? I’m gonna hurt you.” And quite possibly a one-way ticket to Eunuch City.

Using the lemons-to-lemonade analogy, I concluded that perhaps this could be turned into a positive. Maybe competitions in bars, where guys would relieve themselves while simultaneously trying to fill cups on either/both sides. There could be gradually increasing distances, and even a contest to knock a cigarette out of someone’s mouth, with additional points awarded if the cigarette is put out. What kind of moron would volunteer to hold the cigarette? A Howard Stern fan, of course. Those people will do anything. Naturally, this is not going to happen everywhere. This ain’t no Red State game! In fact, it might only happen in dive bars in NYC, and over time, spreading to Europe, initially gaining a foothold in Amsterdam.

Then again, I theorized I could avoid all this controversy simply by sitting down on the toilet from now on instead of standing. If it were in a public restroom, there would be no way any other guys who happened to be in there would know what I was doing, and I could, at least, perform a natural function without being concerned about the ramifications, the mental image of Arnold Schwarzenegger taunting me with (“Terminator” to “Urinator”) “Girlie Man! Girlie Man!” not withstanding. This corrective action, if adopted by other progressive minded men, would also spin off to women the added bonus of not having to worry about having to put the seat down after us.

I am happy to report to you, however, that I have been utilizing the “Sitting Down” method rather successfully except for a single run-in with the government’s newly formed “Gender Appropriate Police” or GAP (knocking on the door of my stall in the restroom of a local restaurant): “Our poopometer detects no ‘movement.’ Please step out of the stall with your arms up and your pants down.” I was charged with “Gender Inappropriate Activity” and forced to memorize each item of a 600-piece Sears Roebuck tool set before I could be freed. Nevertheless, this was but a small setback, and I still find the “Sitting Down” method the most successful. I simply load up with Jalapeno peppers a few hours in advance, if I know I am going to using a public restroom, thereby not only warding off the GAP harassment, but guaranteeing the bathroom all to myself, if you get my drift.

For further information and answers to questions regarding Urinary Bifurcation, please email me at gowiththeflow.net.

New York State of Mind Not So Blue After All

I’m a Liberal. There, I’ve said what John Kerry couldn’t. He hedged, saying he was a Liberal on some things, but conservative on others, but then I guess he has more to lose than I do. How this happened to me, I don’t know. I’m almost 65 years old, have lived in Charleston all my life, and my parents and their families were all Conservatives. 99% of all my friends and most of the people I’ve worked with over the years have been Conservatives. Was I a drop-out, a Hippie? No, didn’t have the nerve, but I always empathized with them. I think it’s just the way my personality developed. I’m extremely laid back, as was my mother t a lesser extent, and I guess you could say that if I have any kind of basic guiding rule of life, it’s “that consenting adults should, in general, be left alone to pursue whatever makes them happy as long as it doesn’t infringe on somebody else’s right to do likewise,” and that attitude sort of blends into a high threshold for tolerance of other ideas—even if they’re stupid. I haven’t done very well in the area of proselytizing however, since my wife is more of an independent, while my son is a Libertarian, but perhaps, I may have, at least, unconsciously prevented them from straying into the invective-lobbing encampment of the Far Right, simply though my sterling example.

I was shamed into outing myself upon finding out that a neighborhood family was Liberal, and they had been courageous enough to place a Kerry-Edwards sign in their yard. Since we live in Mt. Pleasant, a roiling caldron of conservatism, this act would have been tantamount to Ann Frank hanging a “Zion or Bust” flag out of her window in the last 30s. I wish I could say I lived in a small blue enclave, but I don’t. It’s just me and these neighbors against the Red Hordes (Boy, if they read that, they’ll be some furious Bible page flipping, looking for some references that apply specifically to me just like they did with the gays with that passage in Leviticus: “Eureka, I’ve found it right here in verse 4: ‘A man of 3 score and more who toilet as a scribe for a publisher of alternative views shall lie down with the Devil,’ Sayeth the Lord.”).

And since I’m in a revealing mood, I may as well go the whole way: I’m not simply one of those vile creatures that Rush and Sean have warned you about on a daily basis, I am the bane of not only 51% of Americans but Christianity itself. I am something more foul than the ungodly spawn of Phil Donahue and Barbara Streisand. I am more detestable than a staggering army of pantless Ted Kennedys. I am, my defenseless readers, a Liberal that loves NYC. Now, that’s different from a NYC Liberal, because all of those people don’t love NYC. In fact, a lot of them have forsaken their birthplace to move here, initially because of the weather, but later because of the lifestyle, to the extent that a trip to the Hunley is more exciting for them than one to Grant’s Tomb, a meal at Bowen’s Island is more enjoyable than one at Tavern on the Green. You think “Massachusetts Liberal” is the vilest epithet in a conservative’s lexicon? Well, “NYC Liberal” is the term that always precedes a slap in the face and a pistols at 20 paces, according to Zell.

NYC, after all, is the Liberal capital of America, and it is, of course, my favorite city. I go there once a year, but not for the ostensible reasons that others do: art, entertainment, culture, history, and great food. I go because it’s an ideological necessity. Because I exist 359 days a year in one of the most conservative areas in the U.S., I have to spend at least one week in the Mecca of all that is Liberal just to regenerate myself. Actually, it’s more on the order of being born again, and I’m sure about 5 million Bush foot soldiers can identify with that. It’s a beautiful experience being dunked in the Hudson—unfortunately, the image is soiled somewhat by my hazmat suit—but I rise up, helped by Alec Baldwin and a transsexual priest, rejuvenated and ready for the next do-gooder cause.

Of course, the reality of my yearly NYC pilgrimage is somewhat different, but pretty much what most Conservatives would expect: I stand at the plane’s doorway and, cheered on by a raucous crowd, leap confidently into a writing mosh pit of the usual Liberal purveyors of all that is immoral: Gays, antiwar demonstrators, Earth Firsters, prostitutes, various and sundry fornicators, Free Speech protectors, trial lawyers, unwed mothers, bloody smocked abortionists, child pornographers, socialists, serial masturbators, and a beaming Bill Clinton, who whisks me off in a Russian made limo to Scores, a popular “gentlemen’s club,” where we reminisce about the “good old days,” while getting lap-dances by dwarf transvestite strippers. The rest of my visit is spent doing the typical tourist things—there is such a thing as overload, even for us Liberals. However, my last day, I once again revive expectations by appearing on The Howard Stern Show with Norman Mailer for a discussion of how stem cell research might have helped Larry Flynt.

So there, my fellow Liberals, there’s no need to rush off to live in Canada or Australia. A yearly trip to The Big Apple is sufficient. And on the brighter side, just think, after just “4 more years,” George Bush will be gone!