Happy Buffer Day

So! Anyone else groggy today?
 

If you’re not, then you didn’t do Thanksgiving the right way. See, back when the Native Americans kept the pilgrims’ tummies from a-rumblin’ through a booger-freezing winter, they did so with a very clear goal: Allow the white settlers to survive so they could kill off the indigenous tribes, take all their land, and commemorate the feast each year by drinking too much and yelling obscenities at the Lions’ offensive line.
 

Or maybe not. I’m a little fuzzy on anything pre-Revolution.
 

Regardless, the mark of a successful Thanksgiving is a mild hangover, and a stomach so ravaged by gluttony that it would gladly kill you if it possessed opposable thumbs and a large bludgeoning implement. Beer, food, then more beer will do that to a digestive system. It makes for a sloth-like Friday, but the fuzzy, disjointed memories will last a lifetime. Or at least until your memory is drowned completely by gas-station wine and cheap schnapps.
 

Only that’s not the only thing contributing to my grogginess and general malaise. It’s the ads, man; the ho-ho-hoing, ring-ting-tingling Christmas ads that are blasting us about the eyes and ears like an indiscriminate boxer with lead pipes in his gloves. One more hip-hoppin’ Santa wearing too-loud earbuds and scrolling through a smartphone, and it’s off to the woods so I can kick a reindeer in the gonads.
 

Relax, I’m an animal lover. I’ll take my shoe off.
 

The Christmas assault is too much, too soon. I need time to process one holiday before moving on to the next; it’s common courtesy, one that’s long been ignored by the holiday gods in favor of driving profit margins and filling malls. This is an oft-uttered complaint, of course, expressed by anyone with a disdain for Black Friday (or Black Thursday!) sales that herd consumers to checkout lines while the pecan pie is still being digested. Except here I offer an honest-to-goodness solution.
 

Buffer Day. Think about it for a second.
 

On Buffer Day, all activities cease. Everyone gets the day off to recuperate from Thanksgiving – even journalists, who get away with not covering news because there’s a national one-day moratorium on anything important happening. All talk of Christmas is legally punishable by a new torture technique called waterboarding-by-eggnog. Malls are closed. Would-be holiday revelers are prohibited from turning on their multi-colored porch lights; transgressors are locked in a cell for 24 hours and forced to paint Easter eggs while watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on a continuous loop. (This happens on a Saturday, of course, because Friday is Buffer Day and all the jailers have the day off.) Christmas ads are stricken from the airwaves. Anyone caught whistling “Jingle Bells” or “Frosty the Snowman” is stuffed in a giant stocking and not released until Christmas morning. Santa Claus is sequestered in a bunker at an undisclosed location with cookies, milk, and back issues of “Popular Mechanics” until the following sunrise.
 

Buffer Day celebrations include lying in bed, sitting on the couch, scratching one’s self, and farting.
 

I’m not trying to be all bah-humbug or anything. Really. I love Christmas just as much as the next guy. I just need a day – one day – to get my bearings. To not think about mistletoe or gift wrap or sugar plums. Is that too much to ask?
 

Judging from the Black Friday lines, it is.
 

People just can’t wait to get a jump on “the season,” an appellation so ominous it deserves its own quote marks. And what’s crazy is that these people aren’t even children. You’d think kids would be the most eager to leap into the holidays, what with the overabundance of colors and glue sticks and anthropomorphic animals. Nope. Those people waiting in line at two in the morning to save fifteen bucks on a rice cooker are all grown-ups, and they’ve decided that Christmas is going to be a five-week marathon, just enough time to suck the Yuletide season dry: No carol left unplayed, no special left unwatched, no pie left uneaten. Typically I’m all for unabashed overindulgence, but coming hot on the heels of belt-tightening cobblers and can-shaped cranberry jelly, it’s all a bit overboard. It’s like birthday parties. I like birthday parties. Birthday parties are fun. But if I had to go to a birthday party every single day in December, my already-tenuous sanity would collapse and I’d start painting mustaches on everyone. Really ugly handlebar mustaches. Even on babies. Especially on babies.
 

Think about what early-onset Christmas fever does to the younger set. Time is relative, and to a child, a single day represents a greater percentage of their life than for us older ducks. While the holiday head-start likely has roots in the warm fuzzies people feel for the season, it turns youngsters’ inevitable Christmas anticipation into an unbearable eternity, stretching these weeks into an oasis of waiting and hoping. I know ’cause I’ve been there. Late in my childhood, when Santa’s flying abilities were just beginning to arouse my skepticism – right around the time I started shaving – the holiday season would begin as soon as the last slice of turkey disappeared from our plates. Dad whipped out the seasonal beer, Mom tossed Bing Crosby on the stereo, and I began my neverending wait. It was agony. Coming so quickly after Thanksgiving, I had no time to mentally prepare for the long slog to Christmas, which, though pleasant, felt less like time spent and more like time suspended.
 

One day. Buffer Day. That’s all I ask.
 

Then the malls can reopen and people can trample their neighbors to get first crack at an iPad or Blu-Ray player; trees can be decorated and lit, and mistletoe hung over doorways, waiting for Yuletide’s first kiss. I’ll be right there celebrating with the rest of y’all.
 

But today? Today I finish work and succumb to the lingering pull of a residual turkey coma. What a glorious time-out it’ll be. That, my friends, is what Buffer Day is all about.

To pee or not to pee

Men will recognize this dilemma. Women will be horrified and go out of their way to avoid me. No change there, at least.

 

Feeling the call of nature, I strolled into a public restroom recently and made a B-line for the row of urinals – three of them in all, placed alongside and below a barrage of scrawled graffiti and some eerily professional-looking cartoon renderings of body parts. (Apropos of nothing, apparently there’s a woman named “Amber” who’s quite adept at entertaining gentlemen callers.) Standing at the middle urinal was, as you might expect, a man. 

 

There was nothing particularly unusual about the guy. Nothing attention-grabbing. Naturally, I was only afforded a view of his backside (thank goodness), but everything looked as it should: hair on his head, clothes on his back, no weird growths or otherwise alarming deformities. The kind of guy you notice without really seeing, especially in a restroom scenario, when a man’s attention is hyper-focused on one specific task to the exclusion of all else. And yet I was horrified. Dismayed. Annoyed and flabbergasted and various other adjectives.

 

Given a choice of empty slots, you never, ever, take the middle urinal.

 

It’s one of those unspoken guy rules. Generally, men don’t like doing their business in close proximity to other men unless it’s absolutely necessary. If it’s halftime at Foxborough and there’s a crowd, there may be no other choice but to rub shoulders with some beer-bladdered gent; in this case, you suck it up, stare at the graffiti on the wall, and try not to think about the inherent ridiculousness of what’s taking place. But barring packed stadiums or amusement park bathrooms in July, accepted guidelines for men’s room etiquette stipulate that you leave at least one empty urinal between you and the next guy. It’s a courtesy. I believe I speak for most men when asserting that a little personal space is appreciated in these circumstances, considering we’re ... well, doing what we’re doing.

 

If there are three urinals and you take the middle one, you force the next schmuck to either saddle up next to you or take a stall. In the Middle Ages, this was an offense punishable by up to ten flogs with a donkey whip. Or maybe not. There’s a chance I’m making that up.

 

I’ve made no bones about the “eww” factor inherent in most members of the male persuasion. No matter how immaculate one considers oneself, no matter how neat or hygienic, pretty much anyone capable of a five o’clock shadow has the capacity to be out-of-this-world disgusting. In no area is this more manifest than at the urinal. I’ve stood next to dapper dudes in glittering business attire and shiny shoe leather cut from the hide of endangered turtles; I’ve stood next to dirt-heeled manly-men in John Deere caps dressed almost entirely in plaid. It makes no difference. The grunts of satisfaction, the sighing, the tuneless whistling – they’re universal trademarks, an evolutionary calling card that exclaims, “Hey everyone, guess what I’m doing!” It’s not something you want to be near. Even the one-urinal buffer isn’t enough at times. Some of these animals make me wish I could hop in a boat, motor my way to an undiscovered island paradise, and whittle away my remaining years spearing fish and singing campfire songs to bug-eyed lizards. Remind me to bring my ukulele.

 

Only in a men’s room would you encounter a dynamic in which people are forced to go onesies in a row against a wall. It makes me pine for what I imagine is the relative discretion of a women’s room, with the safety of stalls sequestering one biological act from the next. It should go without saying that my experience with ladies’ restrooms is limited – at least since the restraining order – so much of what I imagine is my own sexist mythology: pinkish hues, soft piano music, immaculate bath towels slung across the arms of winged angels clad in sparkling gold. This is what I picture because I’m an ignorant tool. The reality is undoubtedly more pedestrian than the fantasy, but it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which two women are doing their thing in the kind of proximity that would cause discomfort in the most crowded of subway cars. How would that even work? A row of porcelain bowls facing a wall caked with long-defunct phone numbers and dirty limericks? It’s unworkable. Only a man is consistently subject to this particular brand of grimy hell.

 

You’d think maintaining buffer urinal integrity would be common practice at this point. Especially in a three-urinal situation, the middle one should be reserved solely for emergencies: men who would absolutely die if they couldn’t fulfill an immediate need. If Bill Dribblepants suffers from a rare genetic disorder whereby his bladder explodes like a homemade pipe bomb if filled to a certain capacity, then by all means, he should take the spot next to me. I’ll even allow for one accidental graze of the shoulders in this unlikely circumstance. In all other scenarios, usurpers of a man’s buffer space are just being boobs. Hear that, random guy I saw one time? You are a boob.

 

This has long been an informal guy rule, but maybe it should be codified, made into some sort of compulsory practice with a catchy-sounding law, like the Urinal Proximity Respect Act. Usually the restroom would be the last place I’d implement legal intervention of any kind – stay outta my john, Uncle Sam! But I believe it was the founding fathers, penning the great Declaration of Independence, who advocated for the right “to pursue life, liberty, and relief at Denny’s without some putz groaning in our ears.” Wise thinkers, these men.

 

Might want to double-check my research, though, just to be safe. There’s a pretty good chance I’m making that up, too.

 

Many happy returns

The king is dead. Long live the king.

 

That, aside from being a line in a rip-roarin’ Megadeth tune, is a common enough phrase among nations that have boasted monarchies at one time in their history; it originated in France and became a kind of meme, the antiquated version of silly cat pictures on Instagram. The French have said it, the British have said it, and I’m pretty sure they’ve said it in those ambiguous countries in central Europe, the tiny B-listers where the national claim to fame is the production of eye-watering beer that could eat through an engine block. Its spread is understandable. It’s catchy. Tailor-made for use as a rallying cry.

 

It also, superimposed over the 21st Century, fairly encapsulates Americans’ attitudes about politics. By the end of politicians’ terms, we’re so tired of seeing their ingratiating smiles that we project, ponder, and hypothesize their replacements months before an actual election; by the time it’s voting day, we’re so sick of the ads and hype that the returns themselves are almost anti-climactic – one final spurt of democratic fervor before we stumble into work the next morning, dizzy, feeling as though we’ve been creamed by the great lumbering Mack truck of patriotism. All that, and nothing dramatic actually happens. The faces change, the dysfunction stays the same. The king is dead. Long live the king.

 

I’d love to be riffing about something else at the moment – duck farts, body odor, stuff that really matters in my insular, adolescent world. But like many of us, I’m still reeling from a prolonged, post-election hangover that’s far more intense than the most reckless of cocktail benders. It’s a uniquely American sensation. This country’s got several things going for it in the originality department: We wear far more pairs of sweatpants, per capita, than any nation on earth; we’ve pioneered the use of fried chicken as a substitute for hamburger buns; we’re tops in western culture when it comes to the sheer number of amusement parks that feature animatronic puppets. And somehow, we’ve transformed the democratic process into a glittery, all-star  jamboree, with more flash than Riverdance and more celebrity worship than an Oscar party.

 

I’d almost be proud, were it not for the fact that we’ve accepted entertainment in lieu of results.

 

It’s easy to blame that lack of results on political polarization, more difficult to explain how the phenomenon actually happened. Analysts like to point to the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling, which effectively opened the door to unlimited campaign contributions – most of them coming from donors who wear silk underwear and floss their teeth with whiskers plucked from the snouts of Arctic walruses. But that ruling pitted moneyed interests against those with lesser means, creating a rift based more on class than ideology; fact is, the red-versus-blue, us-versus-them culture took root long before that. 

 

One of the culprits is the corporatization of both major parties. Each is subject to the whims of lobbyists’ pockets, and each has developed a decidedly marketing-based focus on creating brand loyalty. And it works. Making decisions in the voting booth has almost become like purchasing a pair of shoes: You buy Nikes because you’ve always bought Nikes. Reebok might have a better model this year, with a stronger sole and those cool-looking spiral patterns on the heels, but damned if you’ll throw your support behind unpatriotic footwear. Which reminds me, I really do need to buy some new kicks.

 

With Democrats and Republicans reduced to packaged products, the next logical step is to turn political contests into a spectacle. This is something they’ve always been, to a certain degree; there’s something in the American DNA that loves a good showdown. There’s a reason every western ends with two gunslingers in a standoff at high noon. But the recent deluge of TV commercials, op-ed pieces, pep rallies and email blasts made the past election seem more like something out of Wrestlemania, minus only the headlocks and embarrassingly tight speedos. That’s probably the inevitable next phase. In ten years, it’ll be Susan Collins versus Joe Everyman in a no-holds-barred, steel cage spectacular, with a stadium-sized ocean of waving foam fingers and live intro music from Slayer. Throw in some fireworks and a motorcycle cage and you could toss it up on Pay-Per-View.

 

I was shooting photos in Dayton this past summer when I was engaged in conversation by a loyal reader. At one point, she regarded me almost sadly. “You’re too cynical for someone your age,” she said. She’s probably right. And to be fair, the voting process itself is far from cringeworthy. I still get an electric thrill whenever I enter the booth, and the vibe at a polling place is genuinely exciting – maybe not as exciting as sipping champagne in a limousine, or firing a homing missile up Luigi’s tush during a spirited round of “Mario Kart.” But close. Part of what makes voting such a satisfying experience is a communal sense of duty. You may not agree with the view of the person next to you, but you’re nevertheless bonded by a common notion of fulfilling one’s civic duty. Not to whip out the violins and handkerchiefs or anything, but it’s nice to feel you’ve had a hand in shaping the future of your community, state and country.

 

I do, however, wonder what George Washington would think of our biannual, over-the-top brouhaha – Washington, who abhorred the very notion of political parties, and who had as much tolerance for bickering as a moth does flame. Would he find something of his own 18th Century in our thrust-and-parry squabblings? Or would be hop back in his time machine and run screaming back to colonial Virginia, far from the din of attack ads and blowhard pundits?

 

My guess would be the latter. Think of the irony: A champion of self-rule, aghast at do-nothing gridlock, resignedly hanging his head and declaring, “Long live the king.”

 

Mr. Clean

With date number four looming, she wanted to do something mellow, which was fine by me. We had spent the previous three dates painting the town, if not red exactly, then at least a reddish mauve; my butt still hurt from the Tilt-A-Whirl, and my pride was in shambles after an experiment in candlepin bowling, during which I learned that my follow-through made me look like a rubber man-doll tripping over a manhole cover. So sure, mellow sounded just peachy, and I did what you do in these situations: invited her over to my place.

 

That text message sent, I stared at my phone for a minute, and then looked around at my apartment. There was some serious work to do.

 

It’s not that I’m slovenly, necessarily. (Although a gander at my work space might suggest that.) It’s just that I’m single, and longtime bachelors have a habit of making some strange choices when it comes to their immediate environment. There’s nothing inherently wrong, for example, with storing clean socks on top of your microwave, or replacing one of the chairs at your kitchen table with a half-deflated exercise ball. But if you want to prevent women from dashing at horse-like speeds in the opposite direction, adjustments may be necessary.

 

A place for everything, and everything in an odd, odd place. This is my life.

 

The first order of business was the kitchen, since it’s the first room you see upon entering my bizarro pad. What’s particular about the kitchen is that it’s an unusual space to work with; it’s large, which is nice, but the layout is such that one end of the room is sort of dead, prevented from taking on more conventional kitchen-like forms by architecture of the impressionist school of thought: Angles, angles, and more angles. Because of the weird open space at that end, I chose it as the location of my computer desk. I know, a computer in the kitchen sounds strange, and it is. Trust me, though. It sort of works, so long as you don’t mind the smell of pan-fried chicken while you shop for Halloween costumes on eBay.

 

The problem with the computer area isn’t location, but organization. Pock-marked with drawers and cubby holes, each bursting with a bouquet of crumpled up papers and half-forgotten nic-nacs, the desk itself resembles normal office furniture that’s been blown to smithereens with a high-powered grenade. As my desktop PC has slowly seen less usage in favor of the laptop, the desk itself has become a repository for random detritus – on this shelf, a cluster of Ninja Turtles action figures, on that shelf, a shark-head hand puppet I snatched for a dollar at Big Al’s Super Value. This isn’t an area kept by an adult, much less an organized one. An archaeological dig through its contents would reveal more about my life than I’d like people to know, at least at first blush, and so any revamping project begins with this eyesore. I might get more out of the deal than just a clean workspace. Buried under empty picture frames and phone books from 2007 is a small fortune in quarters, enough to pay for my laundry until the age of flying cars.

 

A trickier business is the cleanup of random clothes. Generally speaking, single dudes don’t settle on one specific location for the storage of worn clothing items; we remove our jackets and sweaters at the end of the day and toss them on the nearest available piece of furniture, or perhaps a specially designated pile on the floor next to empty DVD boxes and back issues of Nintendo Power. There they stay until they develop their own ecosystems – invisible colonies of microbes that take advantage of the relative stability of the unmoving piles to build their own mini civilizations. Slung across the back of the living room couch, one may easily find pants that have remained stationary since Obama’s first term, and which might, with the proper training, play fetch or dance the tango. 

 

If this all sounds a bit gross, it’s for a very good reason: It’s a bit gross. Welcome to bachelorhood.

 

Now, I hate to engage in gender stereotyping – men are slobs, women are neat, etc. Certainly there are plenty of men who are tidy and organized, and judging from what I see on TV, a disturbing number of women live amidst hoarded stacks of newspapers and petrified cat poop. Realistically, though, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of rectifying the state of my abode had it been a guy visiting. I would have made sure the couch was clear, and that would have been the end of it. This particular lady’s status as my date obviously has a little something to do with the extra cleanup effort; stray bits of Cheese Doodles do not engender snuggling. Yet I’d also whip out the ol’ dustpan for my mother, aunt, and cousin with the weird mole, all of whom have one thing in common. Two, if you count their mutual disdain for my singing voice. There’s something about a woman’s presence that inspires respect, or at least a little elbow grease with the Spic ’N Span. 

 

So what is it in some people’s DNA that dictates cleanliness and organization? Some of us are just born with genes missing. I’d love to be one of those people who has a regular routine – floors on Tuesdays, dusting on Thursdays, windows never. Doing it piecemeal prevents the whole effort from becoming one massive undertaking. The way it stands now in Procrastination Land, it’s a sweat-inducing, roll-up-your-sleeves kind of project that burns more calories than dodgeball. By the end of it, you can find me lying spent on my living room rug, head swimming from inhaling near-toxic quantities of Pine-Sol. I’ve got post-traumatic stress syndrome from the bathroom alone.

 

But hey, you should see the results. Come on over, ladies – I’ve got a nice clean spot on the recliner, just for you.