Secret Handshakes

August 29, 2007

I think we all owe Idaho senator Larry Craig a debt of gratitude. What a swell guy! If not for him, many naïve hicks like myself might never have become aware of the double top secret mystery dance that is apparently required to make new friends in public restrooms. If I understand it properly, it goes something like this:

“You put you’re your right hand in. You pull your right hand out. You put your right foot in and you tap it all about. You look through the crack into his pretty blue eyes. And that’s what I call cruisin’ for guys.”

What is that? It’s like an episode of “Get Smart”. Being a conspiracy nut, I have long suspected there were all kinds of groups that used this sort of covert communication, thereby keeping all us outsiders in the dark. Cloak ‘n Dagger networks that carry on these clandestine conversations right in front of our eyes, without giving us a clue. Take rich people, for example. They all must have some network like that, and if you don’t know the code you’re going to keep working for the man. But somebody lets you in, and all of a sudden it’s the blue label stuff for you baby. I mean, what other explanation is there for so many rich people who also happen to be, well, stupid?

To get in to one of these secret societies, you probably have to be nominated by a member and voted on by the rank and file, then go through some torturous and humiliating initiation process. Then they tell you if you ever let their secret out of the bag they’ll do something really bad to you and your house pets – maybe turn Michael Vick loose on them. That’s how they maintain their exclusivity. Fear and intimidation.

I’m all for “outing” any creepy pervert lawmaker – especially Republicans – but I honestly can’t understand how that guy was actually arrested for the little bathroom stall dance he did. I mean it ain’t like he walked up to Undercover Annie at 9th & High and offered her twenty bucks for … well, you know what you offer Undercover Annie twenty bucks for. All this guy did was a hand & foot routine. Who’s to say that, with all the different down-low groups there are, some of those “signals” don’t mean one thing to, say, bathroom perverts, and something else to, say, this Little League 3rd base coach I was watching the other day?

The guy started off by clapping his hands. Then he touched his hat. Then he touched his ear. Then his elbow. Then his hat again. His belt. His elbow again. His hat again. Then he clapped his hands again and acted like he was brushing something off his arm. Then he tapped his foot. Right there! He tapped his foot! Nobody popped up and busted that guy.

Now, if we’re going to arrest perverts in airport bathrooms and let guys like this stand there, right out in the open in front of everybody at a Little League game, around all those children, then people, all I have to say is this is a really messed up world.

What if the good “family values” Republican (did I mention he was a Republican?) senator was just trying to tell the guy in the next stall that he should buy Wal-Mart stock, perhaps mistaking him for somebody in the Rich Club? What if he was delusional, and just trying to get him to bunt?

Even if Craig, by some wild stretch of the imagination (snort), was trying to make some “overture” to that undercover cop, how is that act illegal? What’s the difference in a gay guy walking right up to another guy in a bathroom and saying “You wanna go see Rocky Horror with me?” and a straight guy walking up to a girl in a bar and asking “Hey baby, what’s your sign?”, as long as neither of them is holding up some cash in exchange for an affirmative response? Is there some special law that applies to bathrooms? I agree that it’s just not right to talk to somebody in there any time except when you’re both washing your hands, and even then, only about football. But…illegal?

My son thinks some people will mistake my intent with this particular piece as being that of a Republican pervert sympathizer. (More concerned that I’m sympathizing with a Republican than with a pervert, per se.) Perhaps there are some low-brows out there who will. Fact is, I’m just trying to understand what laws were broken, and whether or not they only apply to bathrooms. I may need to make a citizen’s arrest someday, and I’d really rather not have to do it with my pants down.

© 2007 Rick Baber