Seen at the gym

One of the TVs was tuned to something called "The Reality Channel," which I fortunately do not receive on my DTV box. While I was there, we were entertained by something called Man Vs. Beast 2, in which people competed in different athletic contests against animals. Often the people won because the animals got bored, which ought to say something right there.

Next was World's Most Shocking Moments Caught on Tape. According to the Internet Movie Database, there's also a WMSMCOT 2, and I don't know which one I was watching, but it hardly matters. Some of the shocking moments were young ladies lifting their shirts at different events where there was a lot of alcohol, film which later inspired both Joe Francis's business and his jail sentence.

Others involved different crimes caught by surveillance cameras. Here's a tip, mouth-breather. That camera up in the ceiling? There's people on the other end of it who watched you stuff the shirt up under your sweater. And you wearing a sweater in August is the reason they're watching you. Ducking down behind the clothes rack may hide you from the sales clerk, but it doesn't make you invisible.

Yet a third category of shocking moments involved people who, either for revenge or just because they're really stupid, perform some bodily function in or on something that belongs to someone else. Urinating on sofa cushions or in gas tanks or food storage or whatever, defecating on someone's desk or property, spitting or blowing the nose into food or other items -- you name it, someone has been dumb enough to do it in a place where they are likely to be taped. Not only that, the somehow believe they are making some kind of statement by doing so. A statement other than, "A five-year-old is more mature than I am," that is.

My solution to this problem is simple. If the person committing this act is under 25, there's hope. Send them back to day care for remedial bodily function training so that they can learn that adults express displeasure, disagreement or distaste with words, not with waste products, mucus, saliva or the display of buttocks. When they have shown they understand this idea, allow them back into society, but require them to wear diapers for six months in case of accidents.

Should the guilty party be over 25, it's too late. Put them in zoos with the other chimps so they can live out their lives in conditions as close to their natural habitat as science can provide. It's the only humane thing to do.