PRUDES!

Every once in a while a ridiculous obsession grips a city and simply won’t let go.  A city nearby mine is in the midst of such an obsession, and all it shows is that the city if full of a bunch of prudes.  Here’s the story, people were driving up on sidewalks accidently and putting pedestrians at risk.  The solution arrived at by the mayor was to install 52 concrete posts all along the sidewalk in order to protect pedestrians.  They flipped through a catalogue, found a standard post design, ran it by a couple of people, and then made the order.  The posts arrived, were installed, and then the mayhem began.

It turns out that a bunch people seem to think that the variety of post chosen resembles a penis a bit too much.  They’ve complained to the mayor and city officials, who admit that they are a bit risque.  Now, obviously, if they looked enough like a penis to offend people, there would be a problem.  The issue is that almost anything can be seen as inapropriate if you think about in that light.  People that drive by the posts are being ridiculous.  Sure, they slightly resemble penises, but not so much that when you drive by you get so distracted that you swerve off the road and hit one (Hey, they do their job!  Protect those pedestrians you line of concrete penises!)  Look at this picture of them:



See, no big deal!  The city, in response to complaints, is purchasing a system of metal collars and chains to link all the posts together in order to disguise the phallic nature of the barriers.  This will cost an extra $7,000 on top of the thousands already spent on the posts.

The reason I’m blogging this is because I think it’s ridiculous that people can be offended by a post that vaguely resembles a penis.  There are much more inapropriate posts out there, trust me.  For example, the posts outside the carousel, while not phallic themselves, produce a very interesting shadow.  Take a look:



See?  Now which is worse?  These shadows that nobody cares about, or the posts that has an entire city in an uproar?  Relax people, they’re just posts.  Laugh at the semi-sexual nature of them, it’s funny!