opinion
When we were kids, Saturday was our favorite day of the week. Still is, for reasons that should be obvious. But back in the day, we couldn’t wait to camp out in front of the tube for our weekly fill of cartoon TNT explosions, falling anvils and more wascawy wabbits than we could shake a stick at. Our parents thought it was complete drivel and rot. But we used those mornings to add to our vocabulary all sorts of critically important words no elementary student should be without. Like “Unga-bunga-bunga.”
And “bracka frat flepple rip ta putta lumah.”
But those shows were the undercard for the only one that really mattered. “The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.” The serial adventures of that cute-as-a-button, road-racing damsel in distress who every week fell into the clutches of the Hooded Claw until the bumbling Ant Hill Mob showed up at the last possible second to pull off a daring rescue. A bit formulaic perhaps, but like any good pitstop, always there when you need them.
That’s how fast-food joints got invented. Because travelers ± whether clowns, kings or gals named Wendy — needed a place to stop every so often to rest for a spell. So the construction industry put up these comfy little spots — some focus group started calling them “rest rooms” and the name stuck — that proved so popular somebody figured enlarging the premises by building something around them where folks could buy a giant-sized beverage would bring them skipping back to the loo again and again.
Like really, really soon.
That’s why nobody went anywhere when COVID was at its peak. With the Burger Doodles locked up tight as a drum — and retailers’ public facilities few and far between — you could get in a real pickle when traveling more than a few miles. There just weren’t that many little brown shacks out back — or along the highways and byways. And pursuing alternative options might land you in the pokey.
Or make you report your address for 25 years.
That’s why anyone attending Lansing’s annual Silver Bells in the City celebration a couple of months from now best be in the middle of a no food, no liquids daylong fast. Unlike 2021, when at least 1,000 people visited the Capitol during the festivities specifically to check out the fanciest rest area in Michigan, this year’s throng of merrymakers gathering for the obligatory singing of carols, tree-lighting ceremonies and drone flyovers will find the People’s House resembles the aforementioned COVID-ravaged Burger Doodles. Locked up.
And off limits to anyone who doesn’t work there.
For once, it’s not the lawmakers who are to blame. Instead, it’s the state Capitol commissioners who’ve had enough of those little Cindy Lou Whos and revelers who haven’t been since 15 beers ago making a beeline for John Fogerty’s bathroom on the right when they ought to be fa-la-la-la-la-ing outdoors at the top of their lungs. Not that they would have missed anything had they been allowed inside.
For like Jerry Lee Lewis, they could still hear the music in the restroom.
But who needs children laughing — or meeting smile after smile — when the commission has created so many new holiday traditions to enjoy instead? Like kids dancing wildly about while shrieking, “Dad, I gotta go!” And parents forgoing the annual hauling out of the holly for this delightful new holiday sing-along.
“For we need some porta-potties. Right this very minute. The Capitol’s been shut down. And no one can get in it. We need some porta-potties now!”
You know we’re right.
Anything less would be a royal flush.
Talk Back with Doug Spade and Mike Clement is heard every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to noon Eastern Time on Buzz 102.5 FM and online at www.dougspade.com and www.lenconnect.com.
