Just when you thought the Health Department could go back to operating in the background, Platte County Commissioners drag them into another fight. Let’s be honest, Health Departments around the globe got whipped by COVID and they were simply trying to get back to minding their own business and having health fairs and approving a septic tank or two. Yet here they are locally in another fight and Plexiglas and hand sanitizer has been replaced with lawyers and title companies. I predict the Health Department wins this one. The battlefield lessons learned over COVID mitigation will be the difference this time. “Down but not out” is the go-to theme for the health department in the coming year.
Remember when one way grocery aisle shopping was the secret to saving humanity? Those were the days.
I’m not sure who will write the history of the past few years, but they’re going to have to be creative cause I don’t think people will believe much of what is written about COVID, Trump or the liberal agenda of the past few years. Not sure if they still have encyclopedias, but those will be doozies. I might even buy a set if one of those salesmen stops by the homestead.
Just out of curiosity, what is the shelf life on hand sanitizer? Feel like we might have overdone that part of the pandemic.
The wife was super excited with all the new airport features being reported on last week. She exclaimed to me out of nowhere one evening last week, “the new airport has electronic signs that say how many stalls are open before you enter the restroom.” I was dumfounded by the need for such things. I questioned her, “have you ever waited for a stall at KCI?” “No! But they had those in Atlanta, and they were really cool.”
I followed up with, “for our entire lifetime, we just checked for feet under the door, does that not work anymore?”. She quit talking to me for a couple of hours.
But she couldn’t resist on hitting me one more time before the night was over. “The new airport has gender neutral bathrooms,” she said with the straightest of delivery, just to out my consternation. I did not take the bait. Instead, I researched this a bit.
Here is my take. The airport planners and government folks took a very tactful approach on this. These “any gender” bathrooms meet their political agenda of supposedly catering to the trans community that is less than 5% of the total population on Caitlyn Jenner’s best hair day, but these are also promoted as family bathrooms, which makes a lot more sense. They can hang the “inclusive signs” and proclaim their compassion for the trans community, but these bathrooms are really going to be used by families with children of opposite genders or those with an elderly parent of the opposite gender, caretakers and the like. It’s a genius architectural political play and Mayor Pete will be very proud of their spin on this move. Probably secure them some sort of grant for the move.
I’m from northwest Missouri and spend a lot of time working north of Highway 36 and I’m pretty sure most of those people that make their way to KCI will not be availing themselves of any “all gender” bathrooms, family or not. In fact, the closest they will get is to take a picture of the sign and then text it back home for a laugh at the local bar, where the one bathroom is often shared by the young, old and all genders, often at the same time, nearly every Friday night.
I could probably make the case that small town bars were the birthplace of gender-neutral bathrooms to be honest.
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Speaking of gender-neutral bathrooms. I attended the Bruce Springsteen concert at Kemper Arena in 1984 and that was the first time I ever saw girls going to the bathroom in the men’s restroom. 18-year old me was not quite ready to see the sinks utilized in such a manner and I’m still a bit shell shocked. Probably need to see a therapist or something.
Anyway, slow your roll airport activists, we’ve been doing gender neutral bathrooms around these parts for decades, plumbing fixtures and anatomy be damned.
(Guy Speckman can be reached researching bathrooms at airports and bars)