I was commenting to someone yesterday that my blog hasn’t been that gay of late. I’m growing to have the sneaking suspicion that he’s actually straight and just afraid to tell me. It’s OK, little blog. You can’t help it. That’s just who you are.
However, in an attempt to ram some homo action down his throat, I wanted to bring up a topic that wouldn’t disturb me nearly as much if I hadn’t seen it on two consecutive programs on television last night.
After we put up the Christmas tree, Ray and I ran through a number of the programs we have stored on the DVR (thank Bob for the writer’s strike or we’d never get caught up). We finally saw last week’s Project Runway, and I was able to finally weigh in on Shin’s recap of the episode (both of them). We watched Monday night’s Heroes (are Nikki and Monica alive? Will Nathan live? Do I care?), and then settled in to watch Kathy Griffin’s latest special, Straight to Hell.
Yes, I find Kathy Griffin funny. Shut up.
Among the many, many topics la Kathy talked about was Larry Craig and the bathroom incident, which I’m not going to even bother to find a story to link to because if you don’t know by now then you’re clearly not reading this blog. She made fun of him a little bit (which he deserves), and then started in on this bit about how she asked her gays about the toe tapping and what that was all about.
When the show was over, the TV came back on, and Lewis Black was doing a standup bit on Comedy Central about the exact same topic: Larry Craig, but more importantly, the toe tapping and its greater significance.
And I learned something I didn’t know: apparently there’s a toe tapping code that one uses if one wants to engage in hot man-on-man action in a public restroom.
Of course, like everyone else I know who’s suddenly come across this concept, I start thinking about all the times that I’ve been in public restrooms. Dear God, was I accidentally sending someone in the next booth signals? Have I ever been sent signals and didn’t know? (This wouldn’t surprise me. Just about everyone who’s ever tried to ask me out has had to beat me over the head to realize that I was being flirted with. I’m a little dense.)
And most importantly, how come I didn’t know about this? Was this something they covered in gay school? I’ll bet it was the same day as the Know Your Divas lecture, because I am horrifyingly diva free in my life. I care not for Judy, Barbra, Liza, Bette, Beyoncé, or Madonna. (I can take Madonna or leave her, but I do the same with Marianne Faithfull, who is the anti-diva, so she cancels out Madonna).
Then, of course, I get started thinking about public restrooms. For my female readers, men’s restrooms look a lot like the bathrooms at your straight single male friends apartments. Despite the amount of time boys spend playing with their genitals during and after puberty, they still can’t aim at the toilet for shit, and if they miss, they don’t tend to clean it up.
I don’t care how acrobatic and limber the boys in question are — you mess around in a public restroom and some part of you is going on the floor. In that mess. With the smells of industrial strength cleaner and the guy three stalls over who had Taco Bell for lunch. On the unsanitized seat. With someone who looks like your grandfather. Who thinks this is hot? Ew. I-don’t-think-so.
To me that sounds about as much of a turn on as doing it on the buffet table in a senior center dining room around 4 PM. Hold my teeth.
On the other hand, it is amazing what depths some people will turn to in order to live out a secret life they don’t want anyone to know about. Larry Craig must be hardcore if he can put up with all that and still get his rocks off. Which means, of course, he’s a lying hypocritical bastard, but we knew that already.
And now I know to keep my feet very very still in public restrooms.
