The other day, I had an experience which I think is very representative of what’s happening in American culture today. It’s this whole thing about just following rules blindly, without ever considering the fact that, “Hey, rules are just rules. People are what’s important.”
I was at a movie theatre in Squirrel Hill, trying to buy tickets to a Fahrenheit 9/11 showing, which was sold out. My brother went to leave, but I was like, “Nah, I gotta take a piss.”
So, I walk over to the ticket-taker dude. He’s standing like 10 feet from the men’s bathroom. It’s right there, beckoning to me. I had to piss really bad. I was like, “Hey man, I’m just gonna go use your bathroom real quick.”
“Did you buy a ticket?”
“No. I’m just trying to take a piss.”
“Well, we usually don’t let people use the bathroom unless they buy a ticket.”
Honed in the fires of dealing with customer service people over the phone, a favorite tactic of mine in this sort of situation is to summarize to whoever is giving me trouble exactly what they are saying to me:
“So, you’re saying I can’t just walk over there and go to the bathroom and come right back out.”
He starts to look around nervously. The girl at the counter, on the phone, looks back at us.
I continue calmly, “Look, nobody’s gonna see. You’re not going to get in trouble here.”
He points back towards the concession stand. “All those people will see.”
“No they won’t. Watch, I’m just gonna go,” I say, and tap him on the shoulder reassuringly as I pass by him on my way to take a very satisfying piss.
And it was fine. Nobody lost their job over it. Nothing went up in flames as a result of my taking a piss. The terrorists didn’t even win. Imagine that.
- END -
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