(Welcome to Allegation Nation)
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In America this past week … a week which ushered in 110 consecutive days of this season’s Black Friday … we got to witness two other noteworthy events:
- Congress almost nearly didn’t barely not fail to not pass a tax cut
- The remaining seven guys with jobs who hadn’t yet been accused of sexual misbehavior were accused of sexual misbehavior
I couldn’t help but notice this disturbing scientific corollary, but the proof is apparently indisputable. Here’s the corollary: a guy’s salary is directly proportional to the chances of that guy being accused of touching a tushie.
Human Resources Sidebar: “tushie” is a derogatory euphemism for, um, let’s say for the south side of a woman who’s heading north. The medical term for tushie is “buttocks,” though we’ll have to admit that tushie is funnier.
The bigger the paycheck, the bigger the target. And big, visible targets are catnip for courtroom junkies like Celebrity Attorney Gloria Allred. (Celebrity Attorney Gloria Allred: that whole thing is her legal name.)
And in this dance, guys, you’re guilty until proven innocent. In other words, this is no longer a case of “he said, she said.” This is “she said, so you did.”
You can tell that things are out of control because it’s not just openly conservative guys who are being accused of naughty nonsense. For the first time in decades, career liberals are being held accountable for their actions, unless they have one of the two universal “get out of jail free” cards:
- Your surname is Kennedy
- Your wife’s name is Hillary
Case in point: Former President Bill Clinton, who’s still walking the streets even though he once raped the verb “is.”
The parade of sexual accusations is crazy, and every new day is crazier than the day before. Guys in the public eye are dropping like flies. Actors, athletes, politicians, very tall people on the radio…
Yes. Even legends like Garrison Keillor, storyteller par excellence and creator of Lake Wobegon, are suddenly being lumped in with deviants like Andrew Weiner, the former New York politician who apparently kept a cellphone camera strapped to his inner thigh, so he could text pictures of, um, stuff, to future adult voters. Of course, thanks to Weiner’s grasp (sorry) of technology, he never got close enough to a coworker to touch her tushie.
Human Resources Sidebar: There are no workplace scenarios in which it is appropriate for a guy to touch a coworker’s tushie, unless you’re a farmer and your coworker is a cow in heat. And even then, you better have a dependable witness, in case Gloria Allred offers to represent the cow.
And speaking of Lake Wobegon: former Saturday Night Live writer and suddenly-now-former Minnesota Senator, Al Franken, has resigned due to … what else … Humpty Dance accusations. The Franken resignation is very much a case of “nobody wins” – Al might have to go back to writing jokes for a living.
This is not good news. I’ve read his jokes.
Human Resources Sidebar: “Buttocks” is one of those words that should be avoided in workplace conversations because it just simply sounds offensive. Other such words:
- uvula
- niggardly
- mastication
- Geraldo Rivera
Maybe the week’s most-visible “I was a bad boy once about four decades ago” news story involves Alabama Judge Roy Moore, a Senate candidate who’s being accused of tushie-touching by a woman who admits she forged comments in her high school yearbook and then attributed them to the Judge.
Moving on.
Human Resources Sidebar: when you’re running for US Senate against Judge Roy Moore, don’t announce that you’re scheduling a rally to try and reach women voters. After all, that’s exactly what got the Judge in dutch.
So, guys, given the current litigation-happy anti-dude environment, here’s some free advice: when you see a woman, avert your eyes, cross to the other side of the street, and nonchalantly hum something by Helen Reddy or K.D. Lang.
Human Resources Sidebar: And whatever you do, don’t compliment her uvula.