It seems that The Winnipeg Free Press is no longer publishing the IMHO column I used to write for occasionally. Here's an article I sumbitted last week, hoping that they would still be open to running it. (I haven't heard back officially from the editor, but I'm assuming they've stopped them, because I haven't seen any for a month or more.)
Recently, after having a couple of pints at my local pub I decided that I’d had enough booze, and wanted to switch to water. The pub keeps a jug at the side of the bar, typically stocked with plastic cups for customers to help themselves. On that particular night there were no cups next to the jug, but I noticed a few in behind, along the far wall. Given the pre-established self-serve philosophy, I thought I would just reach over and grab a cup.
Huge mistake.
Next thing I know the bartender is laying into me, telling me that I’d breached some unspoken frontier that cannot be over-stepped by any customer who wishes to leave the pub with all his limbs. “I’ve seen people have the s--- kicked out of them for less,” he warned me.
I thought his defensiveness was unwarranted—and I certainly didn’t appreciate being threatened over such a minor infringement—especially since I wasn’t aware that I had just crossed over onto holy ground. But it just goes to show how snarky even the nicest people can become when you innocently tip-toe across their boundaries.
This same pub has two single washrooms on the main floor. One is labeled “Men” the other “Women.” I’ve always questioned the wisdom of having separate loos for men and women, but especially when the toilet is a single. Does it matter if the person who used the john before you was of a different gender? Personally I don’t believe it does, and so I feel free to use either washroom at will.
I’m not the only liberated patron at this particular establishment, but I’ll often get a W.T.F. look from a girl who’s been waiting patiently for the door to open. I always hope that she’ll think about it for a second and realize the validity of my action, but I’m never sure. She’s probably just as likely to think I’m an ignorant slob, or someone with a bladder problem. Ç’est la vie. In my defense, I can assure all the suspicious ladies out there that I do lift and then replace the seat.
There are a lot of equally strange North American customs that anyone who’s been further afield may start to question. The open liquor laws come to mind. One night, before going to this same local pub—where men like me pee in the ladies room, and bartenders threaten bodily harm for stepping over invisible lines—my friend and I were “warming up” with a couple of drinks at his place. I was half way through a beer when his wife insisted we take the dog out for a poop.
Was I going to leave my half finished brew to warm up on the counter, or ignore the statute and continue to responsibly enjoy the beverage a hard week of work had afforded me? Weighing my options I decided that it was worth the risk to pull a Julian and roam the park, albeit not a trailer park, with drink in hand.
Oddly this was not the liberating experience I’d hoped it would be. Instead I felt like a criminal, like what I was doing was somehow wrong. I wasn’t aware that I had gotten so old and priggish—it was a bit of a wake-up call really. It’s not like I was Jim Lahey, a stumbling, drunken, public embarrassment to myself. I was just having a beer. And yet I felt the sting of public scorn.
Friends who have come back from Vegas or Greece always comment about how you can walk down any street with a Heineken in hand, as if this were the greatest benefit bestowed upon man. And I have to wonder why we are so prudish and puritanical. Where’s the wisdom in disallowing people the right to publicly consume products so widely and legally available?
In the end I’m all for questioning absurd boundaries, and breaking down worn out conventions. If I have to step on a few toes and risk a limb or two, so be it. How else does one discover what society’s assumptions are based on? How else does one come to understand our laws and limitations, and the rationale that supports them?
Despite his curiosity Ryan Kinrade has no plans to challenge the custom of separate Men’s and Women’s change rooms at the beach or elsewhere.
