The Simple, Easy, It's All Coincidence, No-Duh Defense of Senator Larry Craig

I have to say that I just don't understand what all the curfuffle is about regarding Seantor Larry Craig (R-Idaho, shown above looking like James Cromwell). He's an upstanding Senator that promotes family values every time he's up for re-election, and that needs to be commended. I mean, just look at how happy his wife looks standing next to him at this news conference (see above picture). If that's not a well-balanced supportive smile on her face then I guess I just haven't ever seen one.

In case this story is all new to you, here's the short version of it. Senator Craig travels to Minneapolis quite often for work. While at the airport he had to use the bathroom. He sat down and his foot rubbed up against the foot of the guy in the stall next to him. Next thing you know, he's getting arrested for trying to elicit sex in a public bathroom because the guy's foot he rubbed against was an undercover police officer.

I don't know about you, but it all seems pretty innocent to me! In fact, Senator Craig made his case quite clear during the recorded interview at the police station. The full transcript is online, but here are some snippets from it:

Senator Larry Craig (LC): "...Your foot came toward mine, mine came towards yours, was that natural? I don't know. Did we bump? Yes. I think we did. You said so. I don't disagree with that."
Seargent Dave Karsinia (DK): "Okay. I don't want to get into a pissing match here."
LC: "We're not going to."
DK: "Good. Um."
LC: "I don't, ah, I am not gay. I don't do these kinds of things, and..."
DK: "It doesn't matter. I don't care about your sexual preference or anything like that....Um, I don't care about your sexual preference."
LC: "I know you don't. You're out to enforce the law."
DK: "Right."
LC: "But you shouldn't be out to entrap people either."

You see! Sen. Craig says so right in the interview that he's not gay. This is just a misunderstanding. And I can completely understand him, too. See, I'm also a big foot-tapper while going to the bathroom. Usually I'll have on my iPod so that I don't get bored and when I hear 'The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You' by Gloria Estefan start playing in my random list, there's no way to stop my toes from a-tappin'. And yeah, every once in awhile my feet might bump up agaisnt the guy sitting in the stall next to me. But that's not unusual. It's not like there's a lot of room in those stalls. Not to mention that Seantor Craig seems to have the same sort of wide-stance issue that I have. In fact, he explained it better than I can:

DK: "Okay. And when you went in the stalls, then what?"
LC: "Sat down."
DK: "Okay. Did you do anything with your feet?"
LC: "Positioned them, I don't know. I don't know at the time. I'm a fairly wide guy."
DK: "I understand."
LC: "I had to spread my legs."
DK: "Okay."
LC: "When I lower my pants so they won't slide."
DK: "Okay."
LC: "Did I slide them too close to yours? Did I, I looked down once, your foot was close to mine."
DK: "Yes."
LC: "Did we bump? Ah, you said so, I don't recall that, but apparently we were close."
DK: "Yeah, well your foot did touch mine, on my side of the stall."
LC: "All right."

Wow. Score one for Senator Craig, am I right? I know all about being the victim of a wide stance. Those stalls in public bathrooms can barely contain me sometimes. If my feet bump against someone else's in the stall next to me, on their side of the divider, it's just natural because I, too, hate when my pants slide. I need them pulled taut so I have to spread my legs wide. I know he and I aren't alone in this.

So, is that all they have on the good Senator? An oopsie on foot-bumping in the stalls of a public bathroom? An area that just happens to be so overridden with people soliciting sex in just such a manner that the police actually send undercover agents into the airport bathrooms? Just because every other person trying to solicit sex in a bathroom does so in the exact same manner that Senator Craig was accidently doing naturally because he's a "wide guy" doesn't constitute probable cause, I wouldn't think.

Ok, let me just say that yes, Senator Craig dropped some toilet paper onto the floor and picked it up. How, I ask you, is that a big deal? First of all, I'm a butterfingers type of guy and I drop toilet paper all the time. And being the obsessive-compulsive that I am I feel the need to pick it up even (and especially) off of the floor of a public airport bathroom. It's not like the floor's dirty or anything. Come on, what are we talking about here?! It's just the immediate area of the floor located around the base of a public toilet!! Certainly nothing disgusting about that. And it's not like he was grabbing on to the bottom of the stall between the two men was it? No! Just listen:

DK: "Okay, and then with the hand. Um, how many times did you put your hand under the stall?"
LC: "I don't recall. I remember reaching down once. There was a piece of toilet paper back behind me and picking it up."
DK: "Okay. Was your...was your palm down or up when you were doing that?"
LC: "I don't recall."
DK: "Okay. I recall your palm being up. Okay."
LC: "All right."

(Just a little side-note here: Ummm, what's the difference? Some people reach down to grab things off of the floor with their palms down, intending to grasp the item and pull it towards them. That doesn't mean everyone has to do it that way, does it? Me, I actually lick the back of my hand, turn the palm up and place the wetted end against the paper on the floor. It's just simpler...palm-up doesn't mean that you're looking for something to be placed in it or to give off a signal or anything. And hey, let's not forget that he's being very enviro-friendly at the moment. I mean the EASY and wasteful thing for him to do would have been to just pull off new toilet paper from the roll. But not this guy. He gets it. He cares. Ok, moving on....)

DK: "And I know it's hard to describe here on tape but actually what I saw was your fingers come underneath the stalls, you're actually ta touching the bottom of the stall divider."
LC: "I don't recall that."
DK: "You don't recall."
LC: "I don't believe I did that. I don't."
DK: "I saw. I saw."
LC: "I don't do those things."

Ummmm. Did I say something about him not grabbing onto the bottom of the stall? Ok, never...never mind about that part. It's not even important. Regardless, a lot of times I actually tend to lose my balance (especially when reaching palm-up to grab a piece of toilet paper off of the floor behind me). I certainly don't want to fall off the toilet, I mean how embarassing is that? Not to mention that it's the floor of a public bathroom! *cringe* So grabbing onto the bottom of the stall is no cause for alarm, that's for sure.

So where did we leave off in our defense of Seantor Larry Craig? I mean he just said that he doesn't "do those things." And by those things, he means grabbing onto the stalls next to him right? Ok good. So here we go:

DK: "I saw your left hand and I could see the gold wedding ring when it went across. I could see that. On your left hand, I could see that."
LC: "Wait a moment. My left hand was over here."
DK: "I saw there's a..."
LC: "My right hand was next to you."
DK: "I could tell it with my ah, I could tell it was your left hand because your thumb was positioned in a faceward motion. Your thumb was on this side, not on this side."
LC: "Well, we can dispute that. I'm not going to fight you in court and I, I reached down with my right hand to pick up the paper."
DK: "But I'm telling you that I could see that, so I know that's your left hand. Also, I could see a gold ring on this finger, so that's obvious it was the left hand."
LC: "Yeah, okay. My left hand was in the direct opposite of the stall from you."

Again, does not everyone see what's going on here? I hate when I miss getting down to the gym, and it happens mostly when I'm travelling a lot. So here's Senator Craig in the Minneapolis airport and he drops a piece of toilet paper off of his right side between the stall next to the guy whose foot he's bumping up against. Check. And rather than reach down, palm-up, with his closer hand it's a much more effective workout to reach across your body with your left hand. It really works the abs and is very similar to doing crunches. I happen to do that all the time in bathrooms. Sit down. Reach across my body to the floor of the stall opposite. Pick up toilet paper. Repeat. It's a great little workout to keep in mind for those of you who are travelling a lot.

So, I ask again, what's the big curfuffle? I mean clearly this 62-year old Seantor from Idaho isn't gay. He doesn't do those things. He said so in the interview. Does it really matter that he plead guilty to the charge of disorderly conduct after the interview? Undoubtedly, no! It was simply bad judgment to plead guilty. It could have happened to any innocent person after sitting down thru a calm, low-pressure interview like that. And when you know that you're innocent and that there's just been an obvious misunderstanding, of course you're going to accidently plead guilty. There's a big Oops! I mean, who hasn't this happened to? It was only a matter of time before it happened to a man who prides his campaigns on pure family values, right?

All I know is that Senator Larry Craig still has my support, and more importantly my vote! (pending that I ever insanely pick up and move to Idaho)

The Bartending Diaries, Chapter 1

Awhile back I realized something. I have no skills. Not even in the 'Napoleon Dynamite' wishes of numchuck skills or computer-hacking skills. It hit me that if something ever happened to the freight industry that I'd be pretty much screwed because I've become unskilled labor. So, trying to think of what I might be good at I sat down with a glass of wine to ponder on this. The irony was too thick to ignore: I'm good at drinking! And while this may be considered to be more of an addiction than it is a skill, there is certainly one easy way to capitalize on this: Bartending!!

I went thru a 2-week training program at ABC Bartending School in Mt. Prospect, learning how to make all sorts of drinks. It's a great school with a full bar to work with. At first sight I was taken aback, but quickly realized that these bottles were filled with colored water to look like the representing booze. Otherwise I may have stayed late to do some extra credit work. My favorite you've-got-to-be-kidding-me aspect of the class has nothing to do with the teaching of it, but rather that it's located directly across the hall from nightly AA meetings. I sh*t you not!

So I graduated the class and wondered why I didn't have friends and family come out for the ceremony. (There wasn't a ceremony.) Regardless, it's time to find a job, but apparently no one in the Palatine area was hiring bartenders when I went around to different establishments. Probably should have thought of this beforehand eh? I mean, all I want is to get some experience playing Tom Cruise in 'Cocktail' and then I can decide whether or not I enjoy doing it...at which point I can decide whether or not to open a bar! Let's be honest, is there any more fitting profession for Shoes?

With a lack of tending jobs open I hook up with a lady who runs private parties for folks who want catering and bartenders. The main thing is that I'll be travelling around to different areas, including people's homes, to work for the night. And man oh man let me tell you the stories just fall out of the sky on me, and it's only been about a month of gigs.

Oakbrook, IL

I arrive at the home of....well, I actually could name names but I won't. When I arrive at the house I meet up with one of the servers for the evening. We walk up to the front door thru the drizzle of rain as it's been raining on and off all day with big storms predicted thru the evening. We ring the doorbell at 4:01pm (we were told to be there at 4:00pm) and it's answered by a woman in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped up in a towel. She opens the door and after we introduce ourselves she says, "You weren't supposed to be here until five o'clock." I explain to her that this is indeed the time we were requested to be here for setup since guests start to arrive at 5pm. I feel a little strange needing to explain this to her seeing that it's her party, but oh well. She tells us to walk around to the back of the house. Not thru the house, mind you, but around. There are no sidewalks. Just grass. Very wet grass.

In back of the house we see 3 tables arranged on the back stone patio. These people have a lot of money, no doubt. The backyard is 2.5 acres, and the living room has pillars in it - seriously. The tables setup, however, are getting wet as the rain continues. We begin to use paper towels to wipe down the plates, silverware, glasses, chairs, everything. I suggested that we might be better off moving the party inside by the indoor pool and she wanted none of that. Finally she went inside to get ready for the party and her husband came outside to suggest that, yes, we should move everything inside. So it's a pain in the ass offloading the tables and moving them inside to arrange around the pool but it's still the safe thing to do. In fact the husband has turned on the weather channel while we get ready and we can all see the storms coming our way.

Half-way finished with setting up inside around the pool the wife comes down and flips out. "WHAT are you doing? You can't bring this stuff inside! Who told you to bring this stuff inside?!" With her husband cowering I tell her that we all decided that it was the only way to keep everyone dry for the dinner party since it's obviously going to rain. "Oh NO!" she cries. "We're not doing this inside!! I spent a LOT of time setting this up outside!!" We're all taken back a bit by this and the husband certainly isn't saying anything to stop it, so I continue with "Yes, I can tell you did a lot of hard work, but Mother Nature just isn't cooperating. Plus, once we're setup it'll look really nice around the pool and no one will even have to know that you were even setup up outside. They'll just think that a pool party is a really great idea."

We continue setting up while she continues with her barrage of "I can't BELIEVE we're doing this inside!!" immediately followed by my favorite line of the night: "I MAKE A LOT OF MONEY!!! NOT AS MUCH AS YOU" (pointing at her husband) "BUT A LOT OF MONEY!!!" I'm not really sure if she started jumping up and down while yelling this, but in my head she certainly was because it just seems right. I sooo wanted to ask her if her salary would stop it from raining outside. Suddenly the whining woman has become the Spoiled B*tch in her 40s.

Her rantings continue with no word from hubby at first. It would be all quiet for a minute or so while we prepared and then she would burst out with comments like "It's not even RAINING outside!!" The Mr. finally would say something like "Honey, it's going to rain really hard. Just look at the tv." She wouldn't. But she'd simmer for another minute before yelling "I don't even WANT these people in my house!!!" He answered: "You mean your family?" (pause) "No, they're fine!" she said. "It's all of the others I don't want in the house!"

The insanity has just begun. Finally, we finish setting up the tables. They look great and the husband mentions to me that I could move the pre-arranged bar area that was setup outside to the actual indoor bar. As I'm carrying glasses inside to the bar I get stopped by Mrs. Psycho whose eyes bulge open at me in shock and then she cries out "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I tell her calmly that I'm moving the bar inside since it's raining, to which she starts shaking her head, closing her eyes and basically screaming "NO!!!! NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! YOU'RE NOT COMING INSIDE THIS HOUSE!!! I PAID $50,000 FOR THAT RUG AND YOU'RE NOT WALKING ON IT!!! YOU'RE NOT COMING IN HERE!!!" Struggling to not just tell it like it is to this person I mention that her husband and I had discussed it and it's the best option that we have because of the rain....and not to worry because I'll take off my shoes and in my most polite of all possible voices, leaving out all sarcasm, I say, "so you don't have to worry about your $50,000 rug." She looks at me and says, "They can all get their drinks outside if they want them! You can stand out there and serve them!" Needless to say, there's no chance I'm going to stand out in the rain serving drinks, so I somehow brush it off and explain to her that this is really the only option available. I'd sooner let my bladder explode on her flipping rug than do that for her.

Her meltdown continues as she looks at her husband, basically blaming him for all of this and screams "I didn't even want any of this!! And now these people are going to be in my house!! I HATE THIS!!!!" Her husband, completely cowed yet calm finally says the mildest of reproaches : "Honey, you need to start acting like a lady." She doesn't even look fazed when she replies "I AM acting like a lady! In fact I'm the only lady left in this world!!!"

Dictionary.com - lady: 1. a woman who is refined, polite, and well-spoken.

I never wanted a pocket dictionary more than at that moment just to show her the definition and ask her which part applied to her.

Finally the guests started to arrive and she didn't even ask them to remove their shoes as they walked all over her expensive rug, drinking wine. I would hear her make offhanded comments to her guests saying things like "Yeah, we were setup up outside but it looked like rain so we moved it in by the pool..." and "I didn't really want to move the party inside but finally I decided that it was probably the best idea and so I had us move it in..." I kinda wanted to offhandedly puke.

As the story comes to a close you can probably guess that anyone who brags about how much money they make will most assuredly be a horribly cheap tipper. And you'd be right. But if you're feeling sorry for the husband in this household I wouldn't start sending sympathy e-cards just yet. He lets this occur, and lets her act like the spoiled, immature brat that she is even around outside company.

The final kicker: I feel it's also worth mentioning that when setting up at the indoor bar he showed me the bar refrigerator. Inside was nearly 20 bottles of wine. Red wine. In a standard refrigerator running at 38 degrees. Stacked on their sides, bottle upon bottle because the fridge is packed full. He tells me that he likes his wine cold. As I watch the condensation forming and dripping off of all of his bottles I shake my head and tell him no problem. So I pour him a glass of Cabernet and thinking that the wine is already ruined from being stored that cold anyway I re-cork it and put it back into the fridge so that his next glass can be served cold as well. When he comes back for the second glass and I take out the bottle and begin to pour, he tells me "You know, you have to let red wine breathe after you uncork it."

So, after all is said and done, after the insane b*tchess of Oakbrook goes postal on us, and after I have to serve this crazy couple's guests in my socks, I end up getting wine-serving tips from a guy who stores his own red wine in the vegetable crisper.

Coming Soon: Chapter 2. More fun from crazy people.

Touche'

So, how to begin the Half-Life of Shoes? What better way than to tell you how Mrs. Shoes took the news that I was starting a blog. I broke it to her in an email reply saying "p.s. I think I’m going to start a blog. I figure I need to because my wife never wants to hear my stories or rants so I should just put them out there for the general public." After a small back-and-forth about how it's not that she doesn't enjoy my stories and rants, she just prefers the condensed versions and not the 25-page dissertations (is how I believe she put it), I brought up the great line by Brad Pitt in 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith': "Don't get me wrong, I love my wife. But there are times...." (insert strangling gesture). Of course she can toss 'em right back at me and this is the reply I got from her (in italics below), mind you coming from someone who is apparently against longer stories.

Mrs. Shoes: "I think it’s mutual. . .let’s take for instance, the 15 minutes I spent looking for my tweezers this morning. Knew I put them in my make up case, turned the thing upside down and emptied it. . .twice. But I knew it was early and I was pre-coffee (aka incoherent and barely lucid) so I put everything back in the case to dump it out again (third time)–alas, nothing. Checked both of my drawers, the cupboard on my side, the floor, the vanity counter top, your drawers, and the medicine cabinet – all to no avail. But wait, my top drawer was open when I got home yesterday, and I distinctly remember actually sliding it closed before leaving for work yesterday. Hmm. .. either Abby [the cat] has decided to pluck her whiskers or hubby borrowed said missing tweezer, or I have finally lost my mind – all equally possible. Needless to say, the Metra does not care about my tweezer tragedy and maintains a tight schedule, therefore I must abandon my search. I miss the 6:28 (am walking down the street as it rolls in) but manage to support the local economy at Starbucks and get a steaming cup of joe (plus yummy orange flavor and whip) just as the 6:36 rolls in (thanks to a new and currently inept Starbucks employee who didn’t add the shot of espresso/coffee to my first mocha and therefore took 7 minutes to make a cup of coffee that should have taken only 2 minutes).

But I have left out one vitally important piece of the story. As I go to kiss my beloved husband before bolting for the train (and coffee), to what do my wondering eyes appear?? I’m glad you asked. .. . on his nightstand, sparkling in the light of his ipod clock/radio thing (sparkling as if to mock me). . . were the tweezers. . .

Can I get an AMEN!?! or more accurately a touche'? Now that's what story-telling is all about!! Two paragraphs to say "Honey, did you take my f'in tweezers?"and even a cup of joe thrown in for good measure. Ahhhhh, I love my wife. (But there are times....)

The Half-Life of Shoes

Like everyone I'm worried about my rate of decay. Therefore, I needed to start a blog to determine my half-life. Why not my whole-life you ask? Well, for those of you who fell asleep in Physics class or were too occupied building bridges with popsicle sticks here's a refresher course from Dictionary.com:

half-life:

1. Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
2. Pharmacology. the time required for the activity of a substance taken into the body to lose one half its initial effectiveness.
3. Informal. a brief period during which something flourishes before dying out.

Basically, am I a radioactive substance? And if so how much of me can people actually handle before I lose my effectiveness and die out? Not to mention disintigrating. Keeping that in mind I hereby promise to do my best to keep you entertained if not informed, adding in a dash of humor, a pinch of wit and a sprinkle of cynacism along the way. With this recipe we'll see how long the half-life of Shoes really is.