Double Flee A

and another one's gone

Just the usual. Not really worth reporting even. Senator Larry Craig, Idaho republican, has resigned his post amid allegations that he's a gay guy. He was caught trying to hook up with a dude in a bathroom in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. It was a sting operation being staged just to to catch guys who try to pick up other guys in airport bathrooms.

What this means is, someone's job is to sit in the airport bathroom all day and see if the guy next to them nudges their foot. Think about that for a minute.

It occurs to you to wonder why you became a cop, since today your assignment is to sit in a stall at the airport all day. Some of your other assignments have been bad, but never anything like this. You're wishing for a guy to play footsie with you; you can make this paperwork last a long time, if you could just get a nudge. Just a little one. If the guy sits down next to you and DOESN'T nudge your foot, just has an explosive stink-burst that sends ooghey gastric steam to settle into the creases of your integument, that's worse. Today it seems like there's an irritating surplus of normal people out there.

Have you been to a public restroom lately with lots of stalls? I don't know what people are eating, but it doesn't sound like that when I shit. I think it is because I am healthy and these people are not. It sounds and smells like these people's rectums are poking out their rear ends like two-foot tails that belch vinegar and fire and splash cheerfully around in a bath of rotten vomit. Eyes squint shut in there. Faces are red. In your mind's eye guts are literally busting. And even if that's not what's going on, you don't know what is; a Kafkaian state of terror prevails.

And then, as if Mariah Carey was singing sweetly in your skull (not the real, ghetto Mariah but the one that she wants people to imagine, the one that's perfect and angelic and wants you to know you can find love), a hero comes along. A foot nudges yours. You can get up now. It's not enough to have the desired effect, you think, as you swing the door open and tap your radio, but in a way, you kind of love this guy.

On behalf of some poor bastard from the Minneapolis Police Deparment, thanks, Larry Craig.

posted by dale @ 9:26 PM