Of Terlets, Compassion, and Hypocrisy

Of Terlets, Compassion, and Hypocrisy

You may say terlet and I may say toilet, and you may say coib and I say curb. They mean the same things, bathrooms and the edges of sidewalks.

Those words only become problematic when private entities decide that some people should use the coibs for terlets instead of their tidy, pristine, reserved-for-patrons-only facilities.

The whole issue poses sticky questions for America, private property, and compassion.

Some 25 years ago, my wife and I encountered a terlet/toilet problem in Manhattan, (N.Y.), with 3 kids in tow, ages 5 to 12-ish. Due to a malfunctioning GMC, now Government Motors Corporation, product we were temporarily marooned in the City that Never Sleeps and the kidlets desperately needed relief.

We discovered that city may not sleep but lots of places close their doors–and bathrooms. I eventually bribed a matre d’ to allow us to use his facilities.

Americans are very attuned to rights lately and give short shrift to duties–pun not intended–but there’s more than a compassion issue involved when it comes to the rights of citizens to utilize private, as in commercial interest, gratis potty facilities.

For governments to mandate such requirements could be a violation of the 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, and 10th amendments to our Constitution. To deny them could be a violation of one of the most fundamental rights of every human being, the right to eliminate in private.

This isn’t Paris, thank God, . . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1510)