1. 24 August 2011 · 03:37 PM · 7 notes

    A Few Thoughts on Public Urination, From a Public Urinator

    On August 25th I will find myself in a Brooklyn court house appearing for the crime of public urination. I did so not at a busy cross-section or in front of anything as sacred as a yoga studio, but on a secluded Bushwick side street usually reserved for warehouse workers welding and doing other “man work” (Smelting? Is that a thing?). I’m not quite sure why such an infraction requires a court house setting. It doesn’t seem as though there would be much cause for debate. I was in fact urinating; I was in fact in public. I would think a fine could be paid and then we could all go about our merriest of ways. But the red tape that binds this country of ours leads me towards the gavel and I now have no choice but to follow suit or risk getting chased down by the public-urination-hounds; such a pursuit would surely be the death of me.

    Times like this a man is forced to wonder whether or not it’s even necessary to have such laws against public urination. I mean, am I supposed to believe that if street-peeing were legal the country would turn into one giant port-o-let? Would the average citizen forgo the comfort of a stall or urinal and drop trow right in the middle of the main drag, in front of a Pottery Barn or an Ace Hardware? This seems ridiculous. My urination was certainly not some rogue, vigilante expelling; I was inebriated and pushed to a point where I had to choose between breaking Caesar’s law or the social law of not wanting to be walking around in urine soaked trousers. In many European countries citizens are allowed to pee freely. Hell, in France they have urinals on the streets. (There’s a pretty good chance I’ve made up the street-urinals part but it seems like something those crazed French would be into. I feel no need to research further.) The Europeans have already figured out the health care and the avoiding wars for the most part and the not being universally hated; am I supposed to sit here in my underpants (If I were in London I’d just be calling them “pants.” Once again the Brits win.) playing with my to-scale model of the original Starship Enterprise and believe that they aren’t also vastly superior than us with regards to making wet?

    It’s impossible to walk down the streets of my neighborhood without seeing a smörgåsbord of dogs being walked by a variety of owners ranging from the very pleasant to the unbearably annoying. If I were to follow these dogs along their route, a habit I once held but have found to be considered “unsettling” by the stuck-up pet owner, I would certainly see corgis and dachshunds and beagles lifting the proverbial leg and expunging liquids onto the city streets. I even live in an area where people care so little about their surroundings that they often don’t even bother to pick up their “best friends’” excrement. (Just to clarify, this is not cool. I do not want this diatribe to in any way be considered a pro-poop argument. Public deuces aren’t allowed across the pond for a reason: it’s gross.) Dogs are animals just like you and I, shouldn’t we be allowed the same rights? I for one don’t want to live in a speciest society where man and dog aren’t treated as equals. If Sparky the dog can pee on the street, so should former Cincinatti Reds and Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson. Of course, Sparky’s no longer with us. We can only hope he’s pissing all over the golden streets of heaven.

    In summation I ask you, the common reader, should a man be punished for fulfilling his basest of needs in the most discreet of all public ways? If our genitals must remain sealed in denim, are we really free? I urge you to write your congressman/woman and urge them that if public discharge is good enough for Sir Michael Caine, then it’s good enough for us too.

    public urinationurinationzach and zachzachary simseuropesparky anderson

    1. zachandzach posted this