Laws of the 21^st Century

It has come to our atten­tion that the United States Supreme Court is of the opin­ion that cor­po­ra­tions should be enjoy­ing “free speech” rights, but only as far as con­tribut­ing to polit­i­cal can­di­dates and causes. It is per­haps an unsur­pris­ing turn of events, since cor­po­ra­tions have been grow­ing more and more inhu­man (and there­fore human) as the years pass, deliv­er­ing toxic goods in the form of inex­pen­sive food­stuffs and try­ing to con­vince us that smok­ing is bad and there­fore good for us.

With that in mind, we’d like to pro­pose a few more laws that need bet­ter def­i­n­i­tion or sim­ple insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion in Amer­i­can soci­ety. Just a few sim­ple steps to improve the lives of aver­age Amer­i­cans and aver­age Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions so we can all get along better.

The Ele­va­tor Wait­ing Law

Maybe it’s just us, but it sure is annoy­ing when you’re try­ing to exit an ele­va­tor, only to have to be pushed back onto it by the pile of friendly, patient rid­ers try­ing to get on. Unfail­ingly, this occurs when the ele­va­tor reaches the bot­tom floor, where there are hoards just wait­ing with noth­ing to do but crane their necks at the descend­ing floor num­bers while they wait the arrival of the conveyance.

We’d like to pro­pose that those peo­ple must stay back from the doors at least three feet until those already on the ele­va­tor — and we mean all of the pas­sen­gers who want to dis­em­bark — have had a chance to do so. There will be no elbow­ing or shoul­der­ing or other-limbing to wedge one­self inside before the oth­ers have opened up space.

Vio­la­tors of this law will be hit about the face and neck with raw fish. If raw fish is unavail­able due to over­fish­ing, a ply­wood 2×4 is a suit­able substitute.

A related law is the Stand On the Right, Walk On the Left Law, which applies to all esca­la­tor and “mov­ing side­walk” rid­ers. The rule is self-explanatory. Vio­la­tors may be “goosed” or “shit-needled” by hav­ing fin­gers forcibly inserted into their rec­tums until they either move over to the cor­rect space or start to walk as designated.

The Side­walk Shar­ing Law

Our cities side­walks can be made more com­fort­able if par­ties of three or more are no longer allowed to walk abreast. Two abreast will be the limit.

This will mean that pedes­tri­ans going both ways can eas­ily share the same side­walk with­out resort­ing to pre­scribed lanes for each direc­tion, and that faster pedes­tri­ans have room to pass slower pedes­tri­ans with­out either step­ping into the flow of traf­fic or walk­ing in dec­o­ra­tive planters designed to cre­ate the illu­sion of nature.

In cases of an odd num­ber of per­sons in a party, the odd num­ber must walk at the tail-end of the group and may make faces or mimic the stu­pid and inane obser­va­tions of any other mem­ber of the group at leisure. Oth­ers must pair off, even with those per­sons they can­not abide or who do not have the sense God gave them to use a deodor­ant or mouth­wash while in public.

Vio­la­tors may be phys­i­cally pushed off the side­walk and forced by cat­tle prod to walk in the gut­ter or bike lane.

Addi­tion­ally, any bicy­clist who uses a side­walk to bypass the nor­mal traf­fic rules that apply to any and all vehi­cles may be ver­bally abused in any man­ner and held up by “slow walk­ers.” They must also remain quiet when told “It’s a sidewalk! Sidewalk!”

The Air­port Line Law

Every­one but the few lucky first class pas­sen­gers knows that wait­ing through the secu­rity line at the air­port is no one’s fault, and than every­one has to go through the degrad­ing, passive-aggressive nature of the act. It may save lives, and it cer­tainly makes us all feel more like chil­dren who can­not be trusted to bring drink­ing water on board an airplane.

Wait­ing in line for a ticket, or board­ing pass, or seat assign­ment is another case of hav­ing to do some­thing that should be a lot sim­pler to do. One can nor­mally get this done online, now, and walk up to a com­puter kiosk and swipe a credit card and bypass the whole she­bang, but there are always excep­tions to that rule and some­times you need to go talk to an actual human and nego­ti­ate the pro­cure­ment of a slip of paper that gets you onboard.

Recently, the added ben­e­fit of a free prostate exam and can­cer screen­ing — or is it that the screen­ing gives you can­cer? so con­fus­ing! — adds to the ben­e­fits and joys of wait­ing in line to get mugged. Since the inevitable is unavoid­able (and that’s why it’s called that) we sug­gest a new law that requires every­one wait­ing to pass through secu­rity be fully naked. Also: no more carry-ons at all. All that shov­ing and orga­niz­ing and com­plain­ing about not hav­ing enough over­head com­part­ments goes away, and it opens up all that space for sex, since you’re already naked.

The Birth­day Cel­e­bra­tion Ces­sa­tion Law

After a cer­tain point, cel­e­brat­ing birth­days becomes redun­dant. There are anniver­sary dates, like turn­ing any age end­ing in zero, but beyond a cer­tain point — say, once you can legally drink, which seems to be the last thing to hap­pen to you, because you can already drive and have sex but any­one will tell you that either and both of those things is bet­ter with drink­ing, any­way, so why bother? — it’s just silly if not stu­pid to con­tin­u­ing throw­ing par­ties for your­self in cel­e­bra­tion of your date of birth.

We’re not against par­ties at all, of course, we’re only against hav­ing birth­day par­ties which should require pin­ning tails on things and Bar­bie doll dress­ing and lots of scream­ing, though that scream­ing should not be occur­ring because you’re look­ing in the mir­ror. So: No birth­day par­ties for any­one after the age of 21. Any other par­ties, have at it. Oth­er­wise, we’re send­ing in the police and hav­ing your sag­ging, wrin­kled ass arrested.

The Med­i­c­i­nal Mar­i­juana for Every­one Law

Just start grow­ing it and smok­ing it now. How else are you expected to make it through this hell?

The Pres­i­dent of the Future Law

Films may no longer cast African-American actors in the role of the Pres­i­dent to sim­u­late a future world where an African-American man could actu­ally be elected Pres­i­dent. All films based in times yet to come must now cast women, openly homo­sex­ual actors, chimps, or openly-lesbian chimps (aka “The Tri­fecta”) in that role.