Morning Edition - 3/22/07

Mawage; Yeah, It’s a Joke
Wikipedia says that marriage is an interpersonal relationship with governmental, social or religious recognition, usually intimate and sexual and often created as a contract. The earliest recorded “marriages” predate recordkeeping, so no one really knows exactly when or where they began. Here in America, one thing is certainly clear – the institution of marriage has been on a steady decline for over four decades. Today, fewer than half the number of couples marry as back in the 60s. It was less than three years ago that the first gay couple sparked a debate and gained rights to marry or have civil unions in the U.S. and remarkably, right-wing America would have you think that gays and lesbians are attempting to ruin the institution of marriage. Newsflash folks…straight America has done a great job all on their own. A more important topic is the priority the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) community have at acquiring the right to say, “I do,” since heterosexuals are coming away from the institution of marriage and living together, bearing children and having productive households. I understand that the GLBT community should logically be entitled to have the SAME rights as every other red-blooded, adult American, but is the GLBT community concerned about the rights associated with marriage or the idea of being married? Ultimately, the issue is simple – all adults should have the SAME RIGHTS, but when there are so many more pressing issues in the GLBT community (gay bashings, workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, etc.) I suspect the GLBT battle shouldn’t be the right to have a big ceremony and wear the monkey suits, but who is entitled to keep property, care for sick partners and keep our hard-earned accumulated wealth within our partnerships. As one comedian said, “The most damaging thing to the institution of marriage is not the gay community, but divorce. Outlaw that and you may just save marriage.”

The HOE and I
The HOE has quickly become my leading candidate in the dating foray. Now before you begin to peddle advice about how I should be with a more respectable person – the HOE is simply an acronym for Head of Education. Yes, the man I’m dating is not only stunningly beautiful, but has quite a head on his shoulders to boot. To give more info may render his identity public and you know me and protecting the anonymity of my dates. This Friday, the HOE and I are making plans to have dinner and catch a flick. Meanwhile, Diaper Jo (DJ) is intent on using all of my 1000 monthly text messages in a 24-hour period. He’s truly a nice man, but the consistent text messages, telephone calls and e-mails is beginning to feel like someone slowly rubbing sandpaper against my prostate. Today, I asked him to please allow me to call him when I got home and he sent at least six text messages to basically say, “Sure, we’ll talk when you get home.” Bless his obsessive compulsive needy ass. In an odd double-booking incident (yeah, I’m getting worse than the airlines) I agreed to touch-base with White Chocolate (WC) aka my freckled baby daddy on Friday as well. I suspect he’ll become a Saturday afternoon date since DJ has announced that Sunday is our “magical” day. I haven’t heard the word magical in the same sentence as hangin’ out since I sat down to an episode of Sesame Street in 1974.

Rapidly Fraying Rope
Welcome to the first installment of instances, moments or scenes that take me to the edge of the legal system and have me dangling perilously at the end of my rapidly fraying rope. You know, those moments when you know you’re seconds from committing a violent and masochistic crime. Today’s issue… Rush hour.
In most major metropolitan cities, rush hour is defined as those crucial morning hours and evening hours when large amounts of people are attempting to shuttle from one place to another and accomplish this move in a short period of time. The concept is not one that most of these people (commuters) enjoy, but we all try to complete a task we dislike, do it in the most efficient way possible and follow some general rules to make this dreaded task less cumbersome. By following the following easy procedures, you can help keep someone who’s at-the-brink-of-psychosis from ending your life as you know it:
1. If you’re lost, need to apply make-up are illegally using your telephone or would like to travel at 25 mph or less while looking in all directions (but the one you’re traveling in) please pull to the lane furthest to the right and insure that no vehicle attempting to pass is trapped behind yours.
2. When riding up or down on an escalator that is wide enough to accommodate two persons across, the person riding on the left-hand side MUST walk – be it up or down. To stand lazily and allow the escalator to carry your portly frame to another level, please use the right-hand side of the escalator.
3. When riding in confined spaces – trains, buses and elevators – conversation should be kept to a minimum. If conversation is necessary, it should be done is a respectable manner, including words such as, “Please, excuse me, thank-you, etc.” If you are partaking of casual conversation, your voice should be at a low level, so that only the person being spoken to is privy to the conversation. Please note: If you have been speaking to someone for over two minutes without a response you should discontinue the conversation.
4. Piggy-backing on the riding in confined spaces rule, there are positioning rules that MUST also be followed. Short of inciting your death, you should keep your penis, vagina, breasts and armpits off fellow riders. This may take some torsion, but you should turn your body to guarantee that no one is rudely exposed to your genitals. When touch is necessary, booty-to-booty contact is preferred.
5. Never stop or pause on walkways, passageways, hallways, etc. that require easy passage to rushing commuters to greet or converse with others – this includes cell phone conversations or meaningless loitering of any kind.

Please use the above five rules… the life you save will certainly be your own.

On Blast
What is your biggest pet peeve of rush-hour commuting?

Keep passin’ the open windows…