Editor,
I'd like to express my concern over a phenomenon that I feel is getting out of hand in our daily lives, especially here on campus: the ubiquity and unrestrained use of cell-pottys.
It's disconcerting to be surrounded by so many people flagrantly bringing what is essentially a private act out into the public realm, with little regard for the sensibilities of those around them.
Every hour you see people pouring out of class and plopping down on their cell-pottys, straining and grunting right out by the Duck Pond as if they were in their own bathrooms.
Many of these people gesticulate and pose while making number or two as if to say, "Look at me, I'm on `Friends!'"
There seems to be no limit to this, no sense of propriety. You hear cell-pottys flushing during class, in the movie theater . When some buildings have a no cell-potty policy, this usually leads to the entrance being blocked by a gaggle of people squatting and making unappealing noises just outside the building.
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My question is, do we really have to see and hear this?
It's my impression that the majority of cell-potty users aren't having bowel movements of any consequence; rather, their actions stem from a sad, desperate need to feel connected at all times to the larger sewer system, as if that somehow makes them important.
Initially, cell-pottys were useful in emergency situations, and it's certainly appropriate that doctors should have them - who'd want to be operated on someone in the throes of constipation?
But now that almost everybody has one, it's as though no one can be without one.
We've spawned a society of people who think they have to excrete all the time.
I, for one, think this is degrading. Is it really that hard to find a public restroom or wait until you're at home to perform this act that no one else really wants to witness?
I'm not advocating cell-pottys - our personal freedoms are threatened enough as it is right now, though I do think it would be a step in the right direction to rid the campus of all corporate vendors who hawk their cell-pottys by offering free laxatives.
Instead, we have to appeal to our people's better nature.
Please, cell-potty users, try to understand that your private functions are embarrassing, not impressive, when they become a public show.
A little decorum is warranted; seek an out-of-the-way place and eliminate quietly, rather than stopping to squat in the middle of a crowded walkway or building.
And for God's sake, there's simply no excuse for making doo-doo while you drive.
These devices, like most of our inventions, can be useful tools when used with some restraint in appropriate circumstances.
But, if we let the means become the end, turn a mundane private act into public theater and let our cell-pottys define and dictate our daily movements, then our society as a whole will be full of crap.
Russ Cole
UNM staff
