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| R. I. P. |
It happens a whole lot more than it used to, but that's not news--for me or anyone else my age. I'm on the street somewhere or in a restaurant or, like Saturday, in a grocery store, and suddenly, without due warning, I've got to pee. Just had a physical, blood test, most of the whole nine yards--I'm fine. Don't be worrying. But more often than not these days, suddenly what matters more than anything is that I find a bathroom.
Saturday I was hunting down bulk granola in Hy-Vee when some switch got turned on inside. It's not as if I can simply wait it out. When you got to, you got to. So, looking for relief, I followed the outside walls of this massive grocery store and found nothing. Once upon a time it may have been an embarrassment for me to ask. No more. No sweat.
Two kids--16 barely, I'm sure--are stacking a thousand cereal boxes. Now Hy-Vee puts employees' portraits on their trucks, for pete's sake--the chain wants to be known for their helpful help. Most people in the region know the tune to "a friendly smile in every aisle." One of these cereal-packing kids is not only campaigning for employee of the month, he's bucking for Eagle Scout at the same time because he as much as takes my hand and brings me there, even though I'm not wielding a walker. That kind of sweetness was unnecessary, but then to him I probably looked more than a little ancient.
Just off the bakery is a hallway where there are two water closets, two doors, both marked simply "Rest Room." They're right beside each other. Two of them. You have a choice. Neither is "gendered." I got to go. I choose the first. Door's not locked. I go in. Case closed.
Right then, I couldn't help feeling sorry for Kohler Company, Kohler, Wisconsin, although they don't need my sympathy and never have. If Hy-Vee is the new normal, Kohler will be turning out far fewer urinals in the future, and someone's going to be out of a job. As you can likely guess, there warn't no urinals in that Hy-Vee "Rest Room," which means the next customer to stop by could well have be someone named Rosanna.
The American Family Association, who knows more about fear than almost anyone on the planet, has determined that the good Christian people of this nation should boycott Target stores because Target has made it clear that everyone can use the restrooms in their stores. They're not going to station one of their red-t-shirted employees beside the john to check your and my genitalia.
No good Christian people were protesting or handing out leaflets near the Hy-Vee grocery pickup when I walked in, although I'd bet even money that lots of the customers last Saturday afternoon were buying buns and hamburger for Sunday dinner after church the next morning. This was Sioux Falls, not Sodom.
Maybe some righteous South Dakotan should write the sanctified few at the American Family Association to let them know that the only choice I had when I had to pee in the east side Hy-Vee was between two "Rest Rooms," no gender distinctions. Can you imagine? Right here in the Heartland. If the AFA knew, they'd be asking for a Hy-Vee boycott too.
When so much heat rises from something that's really never been a problem, someone somewhere is blowing a lot of hot air.
4 comments:
Ho... Hum... after all, we all use a restroom, right?
Another day at the office, until you plunk a male stranger on a public toilet seat next to my wife, daughter-in-laws or grand- daughters.
You may suggest business as usual... until that happens...
Not on this guy's watch, period.
The difference is the individuality of the rest room you used, and the room of multiple toilets for one gender like at Target prior to this. I believe that the future restrooms in schools etc. will be a long wall of individual toilets with walls and doors, to the ceiling and floor; so no cameras can take pics while one is exposed that are not in rooms, but maybe off the hallway for any gender. There will also probably be signs on the walls inside each room/stall that state: If you sprinkle while you tinkle, be sweetie and wipe the seat. They will be first come first serve. Men will remember the good ole days when they could go in quickly and do their business and not have to wait and wait...for the women to finish theirs. I suspect that any man dressed as a woman has already been using the women's bathroom without anyone knowing it. I was traveling and the men in the vehicle with me were commenting on the beautiful women near the bus stop were. One man began to laugh and declared that they weren't even women. They were beautiful and turned the head of every man in the vehicle. The man who knew was familiar with the street and the reputation and the others were not.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
I think we should stick with the original plan. Man and women with no variations... how about that?
Heck with it.... tear out the bathrooms and set up some permanent stalls like Portable Potties. Anyone can sit till their hearts content. Next....
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