The howling and wailing you may have heard if you stepped outside or stayed inside and turned on the Fox News Channel, is not a pack of injured coyotes, well, not literally, but the sound of Republicans upon hearing that Sen. Larry Craig is reneging on his previously announced "intent" of resignation. Oh, how they wanted this behind them and not on the front page anymore. Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh!
It's certainly an embarrassing situation for a political leader, especially one from someplace that looks like the backdrop for "Brokeback Mountain."
But, in our "innocent until proven out of money" judicial system, let's assume the senator who called President Clinton "a naughty boy" is not guilty; that, like he said, he was "railroaded" into a guilty plea of sliding his foot into the next bathroom stall, tapping his toes and placing his foot on top of the man's foot seated next to him. Apparently in some circles this means "I want you to move to Vermont with me, where we can listen to Liza Minnelli records and decorate with Ikea furnishings."
Such a scenario may cause baby boomers a flashback to when girls in patent-leather shoes were paranoid that "naughty boys" were looking up their dresses via the reflection off their Mary Janes. Hey, that never worked, as me and all the other guys who wound up with blood-shot eyes in the sixth grade can attest.
Later in high school, boys faced a dangerous situation when it became a "known fact" that someone's cousin knew a guy at another school who knew someone that this actually happened to: He was driving his wheels last summer and giving this chick a lift. She had just kicked off her flip-flops when he got stopped for speeding. But when the cop looked over and saw the girl was under age 17 and barefooted in his car, the dude automatically got charged with statutory rape, right there!
This story was told so many times and ways, it had to be for real. After that, any guy who cared about his girlfriend's reputation, and who didn't want to be sent to prison and then grounded, made sure she kept both shoes on her feet at all times when they were cruisin’ the strip between the Dairy Queen and the end of Main Street.
In the interest of public service -- so that nothing like what has happened to a U.S. senator should ever happen to one of us in Lawton -- let me suggest that in the men’s restroom at McMahon Memorial Auditorium, the caretakers may want to do a little less buffing of the tiles. Those things are like mirrors. Shiniest tiles I've ever seen. When the guy in the next stall drops trou during a philharmonic intermission, well, let’s just say, it's more overture than most of us ever expected to see with our season tickets.
But you know, if the patent-leather shoes of a few decades ago had had the same gloss as those auditorium bathroom tiles, some of us might not need glasses today! |