When You Have To Go

In part because I felt the need to move that gruesome staph infection photo from the top spot on the site but also because I have a legitimate issue to raise here, I would like to quickly report that 2007 Bulls draft pick Jameson Curry was recently arrested for public urination.

According to the Boise, Idaho police report (where Curry is playing in the NBDL), an officer "saw Curry urinating in the alley on the west side" of a hotel.

Maybe I've just been watching too many re-runs of Season 4 of The Wire recently, but I just can't understand why public urination is, and continues to be, a criminal offense. As every one of us who has ever peed in public knows (and I'm pretty sure that every male you'll ever meet has done so), you only drop trow' (that's official public urination slang, short for "lower trousers") if it's an absolute emergency -- that being that the nearest Starbucks has a line and your bladder is about to hemorrhage right there on the corner of Houston and Eldridge.

It's one thing if the micturator has his hose out and is spraying it around in the middle of the street with little regard for oncoming traffic and passing citizens, but when someone is simply minding his own business and quietly relieving the gruesome pressure on his bladder in an otherwise secluded setting (in this case, an alley), our peace officers need to think of their own bladders and the times that they've nearly combusted and let these transgressions go.

Because if they would just wait a couple of minutes and follow the urinator closely, he'll probably do something incredibly reckless and they can bust him on public intoxication or disorderly conduct right there on the spot.

That's a free tip, officers. In exchange, all we ask is that you look the other way when we're relieving ourselves. Just assume that it's absolutely necessary, because otherwise we wouldn't do it. Unless of course we look like the sort of person who might take pleasure out of doing something like that, in which case you should bust us for public perversion -- which, if it isn't a criminal offense, should be.

Thank you and good day.