State of Panic

So, what happens when your state's legislative body calls a special session to pass a law no one needed in the span of time it normally takes to slow smoke a pork butt? The kindest description of the result I can think of is "higgledy piggledy."

Immediately, and frustratingly, the media got itself and the hoi polloi all worked up into a frenzy over transgender bathroom rights within nanoseconds of the governor signing House Bill 2 into law. Since then, all announcements about protesting performers, defunct business expansions, and cancelled conventions have cited the arguments of rainbow tolerance and the right to pee in the stall of your choosing as the causes for the loss of millions of dollars of revenues for the state.

But is that what HB2 is really about? What the NC Legislature did was to purposely serve up a heaping slice of turdcake coated in a saucy mixture of divisive controversy in the hopes the right, left and middle would argue ad nauseam about the sauce without realizing the main ingredient beneath that sauce is a turd. Essentially, Republican lawmakers baited the hook and the media went for it like a fat lazy bass, unwittingly helping misdirect the outcry over HB2 away from all the other things that are horribly wrong with the bill.

What is at the heart of it? A coordinated attack on municipal rights, workers' rights, fair wages and state-level legal recourse for victims of discrimination.

Don't believe me? Read the bill yourself. It won't take long. Not only wasn't there time between the official beginning of the transgender bathroom freakout and the governor blotting his signature dry for much to be written, the ideas expressed aren't very complex or carefully considered. Let's break it down.

Part One -- Single Sex Multiple Occupancy Bathroom and Changing Facilities -- This part states you have to use the bathroom that matches the doohicky or hoohah you were born with, regardless of everything or anything that might have happened in your life or how badly you have to go. Part of me is okay with this, because it means it is now illegal for drunk women at concerts to raid the men's room just because the line is shorter. Sorry ladies, it's the law. Side benefits aside, however, this poorly thought through bit of fear-mongering legislation creates more problems than it solves, which isn't difficult because there was no problem to solve to begin with.

Part Two -- Statewide Consistencies in Laws Related to Contracting and Employment -- Local governments can't require contractors to treat their employees in ways that are more ethical than the state determines is good enough for the likes of them. If Charlotte, Raleigh or Greensboro wants to enact stricter regulations in order to provide an improved work environment and more competitive conditions, too bad. This is where HB2 breaks into its chorus of "the provisions of this article supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government." With that refrain, Republican lawmakers void all past, present and future workplace protections enacted by all local governments in all 100 North Carolina counties.

Part Three -- Protection of Rights in Employment and Public Accommodations -- Again we hear the "supersede and preempt" refrain, only this time it relates to discrimination. No local government can legally extend additional protections from discrimination to those afforded by the state. It also says if you do manage to have a provable case of discrimination, you can't file suit in North Carolina. Yup, the state is so concerned you might be discriminated against that it doesn't even want to hear about it, especially in any Tar Heel court. Additionally, it limits protection from discrimination to the following factors: race, religion, color, national origin, or biological sex. If you're disabled, you're screwed. If you're a veteran? You're also screwed. If you're a disabled veteran who happens to be gay, you don't stand a chance.

Part Four -- Severability -- Standard legal mumbo jumbo that means just because one part of the law is deemed unconstitutional, the rest of the parts remain in full effect. In other words, even if the ridiculous potty laws get tossed out by the courts, it won't impact the ridiculous employment laws restricting the governing rights of local governments and putting thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of working class North Carolinians at risk of discriminatory employer practices with no state-level legal recourse.

Look, I understand some people live sheltered lives and naively believe they don't know anyone who is homosexual or identifies sexually in ways that deviate from the "norm."

The idea of a man dressed as a woman who wants to use the women's bathroom, or vice versa, is a terrifying notion to these people. They see it as something perverse, different, and strange that needs to be policed, controlled and monitored. As someone who has seen more than his fair share of gas station bathrooms, trust me when I tell you a member of the opposite sex dropping a deuce in the neighboring stall is far from the worst thing you could experience in a public facility. Transgender people are people, and what they want to accomplish in the bathroom is the same thing you and I want to accomplish -- relieving ourselves without catching a third world fungus off the toilet seat.

When it comes down to it, you're more likely to be molested inside a church by a member of the clergy, or in a government office by a member of the Republican Party, than to be accosted by a transgender man or woman in a public bathroom. And you're certainly far more likely to get screwed by the lack of protections afforded by North Carolina's House Bill 2.



© 2016 Mark Feggeler

Flush With Manliness

I am not, by most modern definitions of the term, manly.

I am under six feet tall. My features are not chiseled. I don't follow sports. My last two dogs collectively weigh less than the average Christmas ham. I enjoy shopping. My abs are less six-pack and more lumpy down pillow. I bake a mean loaf of bread. My gambling skills are non-existent. And if I attempt to grow a beard, I end up looking like someone who might loiter near your child's elementary school with a bag of candy and a van parked around the the corner.

But where I have, in the past, proven my manliness are in those home maintenance and upgrade projects that occur from time to time.

Need a room painted? Two coats in one day with clean up. Done.

Assemble a new cabinet or dresser? Stand back. It might get messy for a bit, but you're gonna love it when it's all put together.

Enhancements to a mostly barren backyard? How about a 100-square-foot paved patio with retaining wall and a fire pit on one side of the yard, and an outdoor theater with an 8-foot screen and surround sound on the other side? Yeah, I did that.

Unfortunately, while I can still proudly grunt and strut from time to time, a chink in my manly armor has begun to show. It started small, almost unnoticeably, and has grown into an epidemic encompassing three of the most important rooms in the house. By now, it is nearly impossible to flush any one of our toilets with any sort of assurance it will (a) flush on the first attempt, (b) refill the tank within an acceptable amount of time, or (c) flush without generating a screaming, squealing sound like the souls of a thousand plumbers crying out in vain for you to call a professional for help.

Fixing a toilet used to be simple. Chances were pretty strong the root cause of your problem was a flapper that no longer kept a good seal. Easy enough change out and cheap, too. Five bucks and a little water sloshed over the edge of the tank later and you were done.  And if your toilet innards stopped working, you drove to the hardware store, plunked money down for new innards, drove home and installed them. That was it. Not any more.

In the past year or two, I've plunked down more money than I care to recall on toilet innards. Cheap ones, expensive ones, fancy ones, simple ones, complete replacements and partial repairs -- doesn't seem to make a difference.

This one didn't flush at all. That one is louder than a freight train. The flapper chain on this one can't be adjusted. That other one sprayed water ten feet into the air in a room with eight-foot ceilings. Even when you do get one that seems to work, you'd better hang on to that receipt because once you let your guard down it's going to find some way to mock and torment you.

At this point, I figure I have two options, and I'll let you decide which is the more manly of the two. I can either heed the screaming voices and call a professional, or I can remove the innards from the toilets in the house and hire one of our kids to remain on standby at all times with a bucket of water. What do you think?



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Intestinal Fortitude

When I was a kid, I had the average kid's relationship with the green, bitter, leafy plant known as spinach. There was no preparation that made it palatable. Even our dogs wouldn't eat it when I dangled a spoonful at them under the table. If an animal that regularly eats its own poop turns its nose up at a food, how can anyone possibly expect a kid to eat it?

At some point during my early adulthood, I discovered I liked spinach.

Creamed mega-laxative in a pot.

Spinach with garlic and lemon. Spinach in vegetable lasagna. Spinach and ricotta in that all-the-rage, 1990s, faux-bread substitute pita pocket. And creamed spinach. Some certified genius took this outrageously healthy and unpopular vegetable and served it Alfredo! They award Nobel Peace prizes for lesser accomplishments.

But over the last few years, in spite of my growing fondness for all things spinach, spinach has decided it does not like me. And I have learned through direct experience that when spinach chooses to do nasty things to your inner workings, it does not have the common courtesy to provide advance notice. One day you're scarfing it down like Popeye prepping to take on all of China in a cage match, and the next day a single mouthful sets you rumbling on the toilet louder than a launching rocket and gripping tight to the porcelain to keep from lifting off.

Although I've had enough time to come to terms with this new dietary restriction, there are moments when the will is weak and I tempt fate with a serving or two, heedless of My Lovely Wife's warnings and usually when there's a big bowl of creamed spinach before me on the table.

The first sign I've made a mistake is that false sense of security I get after I've eaten more than my share without my body immediately vomiting it back out. Stands to reason if my body can't tolerate spinach, it wouldn't allow it in. But it does, and before the plates are cleared and my belt loosened to aid digestion, the power of that dark-green mega-laxative is already being unleashed.

I might as well not even own a pancreas for all the good its enzymes do in breaking down the spinach on its way along my digestive tract. Like a freight train running off the rails, spinach barrels through my upper and lower intestines, not sparing a second to admire the scenery. By the time it gets through the colon -- carrying along with it the flushed out remnants of every cheeseburger I've eaten since 1977 and every spare bit of vitamin K in my body -- I'm fully cognizant of the fact I should never be more than a pants-dropping away from any one of the three toilets in our house.

The next morning, after the smoke has cleared and several rolls of toilet paper have mysteriously vanished, I make a solemn promise to my reflection in the mirror never to eat so much as a single shred of spinach.

But then there is all that leftover creamed spinach in the fridge...



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

A King on His Throne

The hall bathroom toilet, and all territory immediately surrounding it, has been claimed by the Italian.

Every now and then it might be possible for the German and Our Daughter to sneak in for a few minutes to shower or brush their teeth, but ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time if the door is closed and light is peeking out from under it, it means the Italian is holding court.

The strangest thing about this new behavior is that I never expected it from the Italian. This is the same kid who, only a few years back, took great delight in running around the house naked and smacking his bare ass to some improvised musical number, often themed around the words "hiney" or "bahookie." I never expected an exhibitionist of his caliber to withdraw to the windowless environs of the bathroom.

If you're leaving for church and the Italian cannot be found, knock on the bathroom door. If you're running late for inline hockey practice and the Italian isn't in the van, knock on the bathroom door. If it's homework time and the Italian's books are sitting abandoned on the kitchen table, knock on the bathroom door. If he's been in the bathroom for twenty-seven minutes and you've yet to hear the shower running, knock on the bathroom door.

Had the German been the one to sit on the toilet for hours at a time, playing Minecraft until the restricted bloodflow to his extremeties had turned his toes a deep shade of blue, I would not have been surprised. The German has always been something of an island unto himself. He hugs less, is less needy throughout the course of the day, and tends to exist in a state of remote awareness of his surroundings. A moderately introverted boy seeking seclusion is not much of a stretch, yet he is the one who does not find it necessary to retreat to the quiet solace of the loo.

Fortunately for our plumbing, the purpose of the Italian's newfound respect for privacy has nothing to do with dysentary, diarrhea, dropping the kids at the pool, or any other bodily functions beginning with the letter "d." It's all about Minecraft, or whatever other game he's playing on his iPod when he disappears, because he knows at some point My Lovely Wife or I will tell him to log off and interact with an actual human being rather than a virtual one. Out of sight, out of mind is the policy he has instituted.

But, as this blog post serves to show, he has been found out. Gone are the days of attempting to FaceTime with relatives and friends with his pants around his ankles. Few are the remaining days of talking to a white door that sounds like the Italian instead of talking directly to him. Preparations are being made for a coup d'etat to oust the king from his throne.

Besides, if we don't put an end to his Occupy the Bathroom movement, where am I supposed to go to check Facebook and play Angry Birds?


© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Urine My Memories

Not to be indelicate to the female audience -- presuming this blog actually has an audience -- but something struck me funny the other day when I made use of a public restroom at a local restaurant. I mean struck me figuratively, not literally. That would be disgusting.

In that particular restroom, the urinal was mounted so high on the wall as to render it unusable by anyone under, say, seven-foot-five. It became clear after a quick glance around the tiny room it had been decorated by someone who was not a practicing man.

Let's face it, you could relieve yourself on the floor and write your name on the walls with your own feces without significantly impacting the cleanliness of most public restrooms. So, when you find one -- a men's room mind you, not just a unisex bathroom -- that has pretty little handsoaps near the faucet, extra toilet paper stocked neatly beneath the sink, and wall tiles sporting a repeating flower print, it's a safe guess a woman was in charge of the design. And a urinal positioned at a higher altitude than any other urinal in the history of modern plumbing is the final indicator of a non-user calling the shots.

Moreso than as an inconvenience to myself, I considered how utterly useless a high-mounted urinal is to my 11-year-old sons. The entire point of a urinal, as I've always seen it, is to keep men from peeing all over the seat of a standard toilet, thereby reducing the risk of inconveniencing the next seat sitter to come along. If you're then going to mount the urinal so high that men who are not professional basketball players have to stand tippy-toe and arc a stream four feet into the air to avoid free-form urinating all over the restroom, then what possible hope does the average kid have?

Of course, I'd rather have to aim high than pee on my own feet, like those old-timey urinals that run all the way down to the floor make you do. You don't see them around much anymore, but when you come across one you'd better hope your not wearing sandals.

Which reminds me of my favorite urinals of all time, that really weren't so much urinals as a step-down groove in the concrete floor. These were the specialty of some of the racetracks our Dad would take us to from time to time when we were kids. It's amazing how quickly hundreds of beer-filled men can relieve themselves when all they have to do is pee semi-indiscriminately on the floor and let gravity take over. Even the cows at our Uncle John's farm had a more sophisticated waste removal system. You knew you were at a fancy racetrack when they had that twenty-foot-long bathtub in which to pee instead of the floor groove.

So here's a little friendly advice for any ladies out there who might ever find themselves in the position of having to tell a contractor how exactly to mount a urinal:

1. Higher than the toilet.
2. Lower than the sink.

That's really all you need to know.

Oh, yes, don't forget dividers if you're going to install more than one. I'm already trying not to pee all over myself. I don't want to have to worry about the mouth breather next to me who smells like his trip to the restroom is already five minutes too late.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler