Larry Craig Lives Again

Every now and then something you think that has been rightly dead and buried raises its head for a final gasp. Most often this happens in an extremely roundabout way. So it was while watching ESPN discuss the rightful place of Bosie State in the BCS rankings that I remembered that there’s blue turf in Bronco Stadium. The turf is actually Tidy Bowl blue, which made me think of restrooms. This, in turn, brought me to the past escapades of another Idahoan with national exposure, Senator Larry Craig. (“National exposure.” Ha!)

When the story first broke, I tried to maintain a respectful distance from the whole “Do You Know Who I Am?” thing. What a man does in his stall is his own business, and the good one-liners were just waaay to easy to come by (the best jokes are the ones you work for). But as someone who traveled a great deal, an unashamed science nerd, and a true believer that one is innocent until either proven guilty or I think you are, I felt it was my obligation test the “wide stance” hypothesis of the Idaho legislator.

Without going into graphic detail about the scientific method, nor of the very complicated statistical work that went into my research, it turns out that the wide stance hypothesis is fundamentally precluded by the nature of what’s going on in the water closest (I’m going to be working on all kinds of restroom euphemisms throughout the few two paragraphs, so be forewarned). When you enter the Palace of Relief, you presumably do so for a compelling biological reason. The most common response to this need would involve sitting down. Before you do, however, you have to let down the trousers in order to accomplish the task. When you do, it turns out that the waistline of the trousers, falling to ankle level, automatically restricts the lateral motion of the feet and lower legs to the dimensions of the waistband. You cannot, in fact, move your feet apart any wider in a “stance” than the distance from one hipbone to the other. And if the girth of your hips is that wide, you wouldn’t fit in the booth to start.

In fairness to the Senator, there are two ways you can accept the “wide stance” hypothesis and have it make sense. One is to face the porcelain in order to accomplish a different kind of excretory task, as you might do if all the stand-up units were in use. In this context, however, it would take a superhuman, bilateral medical-collateral-rupturing effort of valgus stress to the knee to adopt a wide enough posture to let your foot drift under the edge of the adjoining cubicle, and you can imagine what that would do to your “aim,” as it were. The other is to eliminate the waistband issue entirely and simply sit free of all trousers or undergarments, which I think is a suspicious proposition at best.

(Those of you who had been following the story may also be aware that the Senator had s also been alleged to have had “relations” after making eye contact at the standing metabolic repositories in Washington’s Union Station. I opted not to conduct the same sort of research on this proposition, being a firm believer in the “eyes straight ahead” theory of public deployment of bodily wastes, with the possible exception of when the function is performed in snow in which case it is perfectly acceptable to look around to see if anyone’s watching while you write your name.)

Therefore, I was forced to conclude that the Senator’s indiscretions were non-accidental. I do feel for him…representing a state known for pristine wilderness, wonderful rafting, white supremists, and the world’s most flavorful tubers, what could drive a man to seek romance in the Minneapolis Airport? And yes, the hypocrisy between his public statements and his personal life are disturbing, but we’ve all kind of been there. I would wager we all have habits or desires we know are wrong. So no matter how much comfort it would give me to see certain individuals whacked by the business end of a flaming beer truck…and believe me, the comfort would be great…I still know that it’s wrong and would never act upon it. Moreover, I will vociferously deny ever wishing this upon…well, you know who you are. And soon every one will know, unless the governments of this world give me…hmmm…ONE MILLION DOLLARS (insert official mad scientist laughter here). Isn’t that right, Mini-Me?