Wednesday, January 23, 2008

More lewd conduct

Here is the long-awaited Larry Craig Bathroom post.

Larry Craig, U.S. senator, was arrested for "lewd conduct" in a men's room in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport last summer. I won't re-hash the details, except to add that I know someone who knows one of the cops involved, and apparently had Craig gone to court, the arrest wouldn't have held up. His conduct wasn't at all egregious. (As you can sort of tell from the wikipedia account (linked above). Surely our forefathers died and wrote the constitution for freedom to accidentally bump someone's foot while peeing, if nothing else!)

I went to St. Paul to visit my sister and her family/associates over the holidays. The night before I was supposed to fly back, my mom called to ask me to remember, when I was in the airport the next day, to check out the Larry Craig Bathroom.


Mom: Your dad wants me to ask you to check out the bathroom.
.....
Mom: (A few minutes later.) Actually, your dad didn't say anything about it. I want you to check out the bathroom.

In fact, my parents followed the whole Larry Craig Bathroom saga quite closely and enjoy very much talking about it. At Thanksgiving dinner this year, a whole-table conversation about the incident even broke out. (Reader, who remembers homo-discomfort over Thanksgiving, will appreciate with what courage I loudly opined "I think if people want to have sex in bathrooms they should go for it, who the heck cares anyway?" This was right after my brother-in-law stated that "That bathroom was wild, people were climbing under stalls totally naked!")

Here are some pics that I took of the historic bathroom. As you can see, it's somewhat secluded. Yet conveniently located near the romantic Chili's bar.

6 comments:

Tom said...

Is the bathroom labeled with the international symbol for "Den of Inequity"? Because I mean, it is an airport, and I feel it would be difficult for visitors who don't speak English to find it.

As far as it being illegal to solicit sex in a public bathroom, I think that's pretty cruel. Also, I can think of a million other things the police might be doing other than staking out the mens room.

However, as someone who uses public restrooms often, I will tell you I have never had any part of any one of any size appear on my side of the stall. Brushing against the person in the next stall's foot is not something you can do accidentally. So either Craig has serious motor-skill issues or he was trying to communicate with the guy in the next stall.

Not that that should be illegal.

Could-be-a-model said...

Oh you know he just got all turned on by the proximity of the Chili's bar. Lord knows I always come back from dinner with YSA at Chili's feeling more than a bit randy.

your small american said...

Yeah, I have never had anyone brush my foot. But in court, he could have successfully said it was an accident.

DSF said...

It's that Caribbean Chicken Salad at Chilis that does it for me! I can imagine that in an airport in freezing cold Minnesota that it would do strange things to anyone.

Anonymous said...

I heard they redid that bathroom after the Larry Craig thing (maybe to remove any crud that looked like jizz).

AM

your small american said...

Yeah, I heard they were "remodeling" or something, apparently in response to the fact that the bathroom has become a tourist attraction and "remodeling" is a way to discourage that (?) but I saw no signs of rennovation.