Tacky in 3 Hours

I can understand an interstate crime spree involving bank robbery, auto theft, or any number of confidence games. But there appears to be one in progress involving toilets.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday:

SALISBURY, Md. -- A 20-year-old was found by a Wal-Mart employee in the bathroom Sunday night after he sat down and was glued to the toilet seat.

The man, whose name was not released by police, was taken to the hospital late Sunday night, said Lt. Cheryl Rantz of the Salisbury Police Department.

"The man had gone into the bathroom and sat down," she said. "He was banging on the wall when the employee came in."

Rantz said the man was treated and released.

But this appears to be the second case of a Maryland drive-by gluing in the last several months. In reporting the same story (with additional local color) the Delmarva Daily Times added:

In the last hour of April Fool's Day, an employee at Denny's restaurant near Route 50 found a customer in a similar predicament. The man was also treated and released from the hospital with injuries related to glue.

The investigation into that incident remains open, police said Monday.

And these are not isolated incidents.

Back in 2003, a fellow named Bob Dougherty became glued to the seat of a Boulder, Colorado Home Depot toilet (presumably one in the rest room, rather than on the showroom floor). Not impressed with Home Depot's response to his pleas for help, he sued the company in November, 2005, as reported HERE.

Aside from wondering whether "interstate transportation of butt-gluing paraphernalia" is a federal offense, I'm having trouble understanding the events leading up to the point where the victim becomes one with the seat.

If something like Super Glue was used, the stuff dries so fast that the application of the victim would have had to take place within seconds of the application of the glue. That seems pretty unlikely involving, as it does, the mental image of a poor fellow turning his back for a moment to drop trou, and not noticing the long arm that snakes in from the next stall, wielding a Super Glue impregnated swab. Not likely.

But if some sort of ordinary glue was used, then one must imagine that the victim remained firmly seated for some sufficiently long period of time for the glue to cure. Aside from wondering just how long that might take, and why anyone's visit ought to take quite that long, one must also assume that the victim never noticed -- for that entire considerable span of time -- that anything was amiss down under. Not likely, neither time-wise, nor sensation-wise.

We reject out of hand the use of one of THESE.

But, finally, we must ask what proportion of the adult population goes into a public restroom -- under whatever imperative -- and doesn't look before settling in. Not likely. It may be that I frequent the poorer class of public restrooms, but scoping out the immediate neighborhood prior to use has saved me from several unpleasant adventures.

What then are we to conclude? Hard to know.

But in the meantime: Keep watching the skies, my friends. Keep watching the skies.