I am not an enormous fan of public bathrooms and I avoid them when I can.

However, there are times when you cannot avoid them, which is pretty much why they are there – at one time or another, everybody has to use one.  Which is probably why they are called public.

But, you know what I really hate?  I really hate being pointed to the bathrooms in an upscale restaurant and then when I arrive I cannot figure out which door to enter.  Is there some kind of contest in upscale restaurants to see which one can have the most ambiguous signs for men and women?

Look, when I head for the bathroom, I have business to take care of.  I’m not going just to check for the decor or the possible artistic content; I have something to do.  The last thing I want to do is to stand there and try to figure out if I am the cow or the bull when both of them have things hanging south.  In one restaurant, I had to figure out if I was the circle or the stick.

I do not want to play this game.  Not when I am on a mission.

So, last night I was headed into the restroom in a very nice midtown restaurant.  After a long, friendly and very delicious dinner with people I truly enjoy, the waiter pointed me, at my request, to the ladies room.  In most restaurant, the ladies room is right next to the mens room, as it was in this one.  I turn the corner and see something that resembles a Chinese word on the wall, which was really strange because this was a Salva /Tex restaurant.  All I could think was, damn, I wish I hadn’t had that Margarita and crap, I don’t read Chinese.

There I stood, in great need of business and I cannot for the life of me figure out the two symbols, but I am damn near certain that they are Korean algebra  or something.

I swear on all that is holy that I stood there for two full minutes waiting for someone else to come along and enter one of the doors and pray that it was someone wearing gender specific clothes.  As my ears were starting to leak, I closed my eyes and then focused again on the two symbols until I was at least 25% certain that one was an M and the other was an F.

Just as I make my decision, a man comes out of that door.  Now I have to ask myself, was he as confused as I am and went into the F room by mistake?

I finally decided that I am 65 years old and can play senile with the best of them.  I walked in a door, completed my task, and walked out.  There was nothing hanging on the wall, so I suspect I picked correctly.

But, if I ever end up in jail for puddling outside a bathroom door,  make sure the headline says, “What Is Wrong With Putting MEN and WOMEN on Bathroom Doors?”

Romney’s great European blunderwander did not include a stop in Italy.

And I, as one who loves art and wine and looking a nakkid statues, wondered why.  I thought maybe it was an aversion to pasta or olives, but come to find out, there was another reason.

Mitt Romney skipped Italy on his swing through Europe. That was probably prudent.

That’s because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day.

…

Bain funneled profits through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a common corporate strategy for avoiding income taxes in other European countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.

…

In Italy, the deals have spurred at least three books, separate legal and regulatory probes and newspaper columns alleging investors made a fortune at the expense of Italian taxpayers.

Well, and it’s hard not to laugh at the Pope’s funny hat.

Look, I am certain that Romney would greeted as warmly in Italy as he was in Poland.   However, you’d think that Romney would do well in Italy, you know, what with that whole fascism thing they have in common.

Mitt, Darlin’, if you cannot stand up to the crazy crap coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth, then maybe Leader of the Free World ain’t exactly your calling.

Donald Trump said Monday that the GOP wants him to have a role at the Republican National Convention.

“I know they want me to,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” when asked if he planned on speaking at the convention in Tampa. “I’ll see what happens.”

Seriously?  We have Bill Clinton, Julián Castro, and Michelle Obama.  They have Donald Trump.

Folks in Texas say that Fort Bend County, where I live, has to be the first suburban county to flip Democratic for the state of Texas to flip.

In 2008, Barack Obama got 49% of the vote here, and over the past 4 years the demographics of my county continue to shift Democratic.  We have a slate of excellent candidates locally.  We may be electing the first African American sheriff since Reconstruction and we also may be electing the first female District Court Judge in the entire history of the county.  All of our judges are currently old white Republican men.

I belong to a group of good folks in the county called Silver Democrats.  It’s Democrats over the age of 55.  They are block walking every week and knocking on doors, reminding people that this election is important.

They need $500 to buy 1,500 plastic bags like the one over yonder to put on  doors with campaign literature in it.  They want to print OBAMA ’12 in large blue letters at the bottom.  People will toss aside a door hanger, but they will look inside this bag and keep it.

I’m asking for help, but I’m willing to do my part.

There is a reward that goes with your generous donation.  Yes, a reward besides feeling really, really good about yourself.

For a $5 donation, Bubba and I will send you a postcard from the Democratic National Convention with Obama’s picture on it.  We originally ordered them to thank our friends who voted for us to be delegates, but we don’t have as many friends as we thought we did, so we have some left over.  We will mail them from Charlotte, North Carolina, during the convention.  That is one cool memento.

For a $25 donation, you will get a postcard and an Obama  yardsign planted in this county with your name at the bottom.  The Obama campaign will spend no money in Texas so there will be no yard signs.  We will give a Fort Bend County Democrat an Obama yard sign just to hack-off Rick Perry and the Republicans around here.  We will put whatever you want at the bottom of the sign – keep it clean, Momma inspects the signs, too –  with a marker, take a picture of the Democrat who got your sign and email the picture to you.  You will have the daily joy of knowing that your yard sign is hacking off a Republican in Texas.  If a Republican steals it, we will replace it.  That’s just how much we enjoy hacking off Republicans.  Rev. Thomas has volunteered to tell God about that lousy thief, too.

For a $50 donation, you get all of the above and a genuine a Obama fundraising swag something or other.  Yes, we know.  Every other political fundraiser only promises you good government.  With us, you get good government and cool stuff.  You will get an Obama baseball cap if we have one in stock.  If we’ve sold out, we’ll replace it with something equally as cool.  Marsha is in charge of cool stuff and she’s generous.

For a $100 donation, we will come to your house and clean the tops of your ceiling fans.  Okay, so we won’t, but that’s how we will feel.  You’ll get all of the above and a hand written thank you note from Miss Bev who is 85 years old, voted for President Roosevelt and does all our proper correspondence.

Here How To Do It.

First, click here and make your donation.  If you don’t do business online, you can mail a check (or cash if you’re feeling lucky) to Silver Democrats, PO Box 785, Richmond, Texas 77406

Then, go to my Tell Juanita page and send me your name, address, and email address.  That will start the ball rolling to making you a beloved character in my hometown.

Once again, here’s the bags we want to buy.  We will have “OBAMA ’12” put at the bottom in BIG letters.

If we get more than $500, we’ll donate bags to the Young Democrats here.  They are not as peppy as we are but they generally behave better.

If we get less than $500, I’m going to blame you.

UPDATE:  We’ve hit over $1,000 in just a few hours.  That means the Young Democrats get bags, too.  Now we’re working on getting some for the Texas Demcoratic Women here.  I have the coolest customers on the block!

So apparently Rick Perry pried the duct tape off his mouth put there by his fellow Republicans two months ago.

He’s back and he has opinions.

The announcement of Mitt Romney’s running mate won’t do much to change the dynamics of the presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday.

Ya think?  Let’s look at it this way – Romney has no good choices but that’s not going to matter?  You’re just hoping people will cease to notice that somedamnfool would be leader of the free world if Romney is elected and then poops out?  Yeah, well, that worked real well for John McCain, Honey.

But, Rick and I agree about one thing.

“There are great and talented people out there, but vice presidential candidates are interesting choices that will probably only make two or three days worth of news, unless they make some huge gaffe,” Perry told CNN in an interview at the Republican Governors Association retreat in Aspen, Colorado. “As long as it’s not me, I’ll be cool.”

Because nobody has a handle on Huge Gaffe quite like Rick Perry does.

Thanks to David and Warner for the heads up.