Step away from the Handi-Wipes and reach for the sky

It’s getting to the point where you can’t have any fun anymore.

Unless, that is, you enjoy rules and restrictions. If so, then life is a laugh-riot.

It started in Chicago a few years ago, when the city banned the sale of pate de foie gras. Now, I have never been a big fan of goose-liver-based appetizers smeared across a cracker, but once I knew that I was forbidden to chow down on a bucketload of creamed goose giblets any time I visited a fine Chicago eatery, I got a hankering for the stuff.

But no, the rights of migratory waterfowl trumped the rights of fine diners who were higher on the food chain, so if I wanted to revel in the faux-pate experience I had to settle for a tube of grocery-store Oscar Meyer braunschweiger. I guess the pigs who volunteered their livers for my kitchen canapé didn’t have as strong a legal team as the geese did.

I suppose I could have just booked a flight to New York City, where geese are still treated like nothing more than big rats with kazoos and swim flippers, when it comes to their rights to guard their cherished chitlins, but the banning bug had spread to the Big Apple, too, when they put a citywide kibosh on the Big Gulp.

For the record, I never gulp soda or any other carbonated beverages, big or small — except, of course, those frothy carbonated pub pints that never fail to make me the smartest, best looking guy in the room. But still, even if a guy could go to Manhattan and score a mouthful of greasy goose guts, how would he ever wash it down without a Big Gulp chaser?

It’s just as crazy on the loony Left Coast, where the city of West Hollywood recently banned the sale of genuine fur apparel, a law that shines as the crowning jewel on that city’s claim to be a “cruelty-free zone for animals.” Oh, Hollywood high-fashionistas can still wear fake fur to keep their fake breasts toasty-warm, but they won’t be able to smooth-talk a real fox out of its real fur any more.

Darren Gold, chairman of the West Hollywood Design District, thinks the fur ban is a bad idea because it will skin their image as a West Coast fashion capital, and fur is still a big deal on the catwalk.

But he had better be careful with talk like that, because it’s only a matter of time before those California pet-huggers rise up to ban any language that might suggest walking on a cat. You don’t want to rile a cat-wackadoodle. Of all the wackadoodles in the world, cat-wackadoodles can be the most vindictive.

Trust me — I know.

Once they get their dander up, they won’t rest until they get words like “catwalk” snipped right out of the dictionary. They’ll find a way to do it, too, because there’s more than one way to skin … well, you know. And when they’ve purged the language of any words suggesting feline foul play, they’ll high-five their kitties—but they’ll do it carefully, because cat de-clawing was banned in West Hollywood long ago.

But it’s not just a city here and there that goes stark-banning mad. It’s a nationwide trend.

Starbucks got into the banning act a week or so ago by announcing that they won’t serve their high-priced coffees anywhere in the country to anybody carrying a firearm. Not even if you order a decaf.

You would think a joint that forces you to talk like an Italian gangster to order a coffee would welcome clients toting a heavy violin case, but no. Not anymore.

Now, I’m not a concealed-carry kind of guy, and I wouldn’t set foot in a Starbucks on a bet, but I can imagine news like that might make some caffeine-challenged cowboy want to strap on a Smith & Wesson and dare them not to serve him a double-cream cinnamon-dusted venti espresso mocha crappacino.
“And keep your hands where I can see them when you reach for that biscotti.”

All those rules and restrictions might make you want to just stay at home, but you’re kidding yourself if you think you can live your life unmonitored and unfettered behind your own front door.

Just last week in Bemus Point, New York, the hammer came down on all those tidy folks who like to use a pre-moistened towelette as part of their toilet etiquette. We won’t speculate on how those Handi-Wipes are being used, but plenty of them end up getting flushed—and that’s when the Bemus Point Potty Patrol stepped in to flex their muscles.

Apparently, the flushed wipes may lead to clogs and backups. At least that’s what the crapper cops would have you believe. That’s how they have justified setting up traps — basket strainers in sections of sewers—that let them pinpoint exactly where the wipes are originating.

“We could walk right up, knock on the door and say, ‘Listen, this problem is coming right from your house,’” says Tom Walsh, senior project coordinator at South & Center Chautauqua Lake Sewer Districts.

And by the way, he might add, you may want to think about laying off all the burritos.

As I say, it’s getting to the point where you can’t have fun anymore.

It’s just a matter of time before some busybody bureaucrat tells me I can’t fly my battery-operated video reconnaissance drone over the rooftop tanning deck at the local sorority house.

Just — you know — to make sure those girls aren’t eating foie gras up there or something.

Author, musician, and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Con¬tact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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