Unintended Consequenses

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“Good after ladies, gentlemen, and others. I am here to present the newly proposed Lincoln Convention Center, as designed by the Smith and Jones Architectural Firm of Chicago, Illinois. The design is for a building of no more than one million square feet, with maximal usable exposition space. I believe that you will find that we have done just that.”

Ms. Jones started her presentation showing exterior drawings of a gorgeous structure, not looking at all like most Convention Centers, which looked like steel and glass boxes. She advanced through a series of pictures showing the various entryways and hallways, all beautifully done in vibrant colors. She stopped after displaying a drawing of a room containing two rows of 5 tables each.

“This ends the slideshow portion, if there aren’t any questions I’ll begin going over the specifics.”

“I have a question Ms. Jones. Do you have drawings of what the main exposition space would look like? That small function room looks good, but I am sure that everyone would like to see the main space.”

Ms. Jones looked a little surprised, “I’m sorry. That is the main and only space.”

An uproar erupted amongst the council people. Finally one voice overrode the others, “Are we to understand that you have designed a ONE MILLION square foot building that has 500 square feet of usable space?”

Ms. Jones looked at her notes, “623 square feet actually. But yes, that is all the usable space we could come up with.”

“What is the rest of the space being used for?”

Ms. Jones had been expecting this from the beginning, “Other than hallways, service ways, structural members, and the entryway. It’s the restrooms. Under the Potty Equality for Everyone Act passed last year, commercial building are required to provide restrooms for every different gender and sexuality group. That list is currently over 100 and growing.

“Because building regulations require a certain number usable stalls per maximum occupancy and maximum occupancy is defined by area. So for a building this sized we have to provide approximately 137 facilities for each appropriate gender and sexuality group.”

“Ms. Jones, are telling us that you have 137 toilets for 100 different groups?”

“No sir. Some of the facilities are urinals, some are patches of artificial grass, some changing tables. I’d have to check to see what the complete list is.”

One of the councilpersons yelled, “Patches of grass? Changing tables?”

Ms. Jones looked up, “Yes, the first is for Furries of various types and human pets, amongst others. The latter for the various adult babies, sissies, and diaper lovers of all genders.”

“Wait, buildings are required to provide equal facilities for all those groups? I’ve never even heard of most of those groups.”

“The PEE Act made no accommodations for numbers of each group, so the law is based off the numbers formerly required for men and women.”

The Chairwoman banged her gavel, and got everyone to quiet down, “Thank you Ms. Jones. We will get back to you after we receive all of the proposals.”

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We are on our way there.

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

Facebook already offers 58(at last count) possible gender choices.

Lol

*giggles, giggles some more*
~Hypatia >i< ..:::

That was partially my

That was partially my inspiration, along with the absurdity of the government trying to accommodate everyone.

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An excellent example of lampooning absurdity by being absurd. Thank you.

***

Just in case the real problem escapes anyone ... democracy is broken.

Both capitalistic and socialistic societies are devolving toward terminal absurdity because democracy is the foundation for both. We have to find a better system. Until we do things will keep moving in the present direction.

T

What you don't think that

What you don't think that some part of the government might try to pass some idiocy like the PEE Act?

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Unfortunately, we all know they will. Dang it.

In fact, the way things are going now it won't be long before politicians from *several* parts of the government are simultaneously trying to pass the PEE Act or something even more absurd. The Democratic politicians will propose two versions while the Republican politicians will propose three. Of course that means a compromise committee will then be needed to sort out the confusion. After careful and difficult deliberation it will select the seven best of these for actual passage.

And of course each of these seven new laws will have mutually exclusive features compared to the others, so that when you comply with one you automatically violate one or more of the rest. (However, you can get a waiver if you have contributed to the right politicians from both parties.)

Most enlightened societies these days use the representative form of democracy, so all it takes to pass the next PEE Act is 50%-plus-one of a few hundred politicians. But even if we had a direct democracy (where all citizens personally vote on all laws) it still only takes 50%-plus-one to have the power to dictate to the other 50%-minus-one.

***

In a free and just society the politicians would never be allowed to even propose something like the PEE Act, let alone pass it into law.

I'm just wondering how we are going to get from where we are to this hypothetical free and just society.

T

Brilliant

I almost needed one of those facilities when I read patches of grass for furries. Felix and I were talking about that the other day. Add a sandbox with kitty litter and a place to store mattresses for the bed wetters and the list is endless.

Great job, incredibly entertaining in such a few short words.

Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)

Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life

I forgot about different

I forgot about different things for different types of Human Pets, after all the Human Cat pets would need those litter boxes.

I don't want to know what the Human-rabbits do. Ewww.

and that concludes our

and that concludes our discussion on how to keep the govt. from spending our money to construct a building

This is not as comical as it

This is not as comical as it sounds, as in this day and age of Political Correctness and the 'lets not ever offend anyone' lawsuits being filed by those who just can't seem to 'get along with the other children'; buildings such as described here are well within the realm of actual possibility.

Unfortunately true. But

Unfortunately true. But believe me that should something like the PEE Act get passed, I will be there demanding my own particular type of bathroom.

Some of the info I used in the story is accurate, although I think I fudged the way it is supposed to work. 2 million square feet would require the number of "water closets" for women I wrote, and I believe a slightly smaller number of "water closets" and urinals for men. I am not sure exactly what numbers they use for determining occupancy.

If anything the 100 different types is an underestimate, besides the grass patches, there would have to be litter boxes because to paraphrase Ghostbusters, Dogs and Cats shouldn't potty together. And you need one for the males, females, shemales, T-males, T-females, agender, hewomen, and on and on.

Wow O_O

Still 137 genders? I venture to say there is far more than that. We have gender neutral restrooms, I know plenty of non-binary folx that absolutely love those. I don't think we can count how many genders there are in the universe, but either way this is interesting.

I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D

No, 137 facilities for each

No, 137 facilities for each gender. So a combo of 137 urinals and toilets for Men, 137 toilets for Women, 137 urinals and toilets for shemales, 137 for T-girls, 137 for T-boys, and on and on.

Facebook has 58(?) gender identifiers, and it isn't hard to expand those, especially if the GOVERNMENT has mandated equal access for all.

For example, I am an agender adult baby, so I need an agender bathroom with an adult sized changing table, or for equal rights in the story, restrooms with 137 changing tables. The male adult babies would another 137 changing tables, the females another 137, the sissies another 137, the T-girls another 137... See how easy it is to get to ridiculous numbers?

Not too farfetched

Stupid laws have caused similar problems before. The Pentagon has twice as many bathrooms as it needs because of Virginia's segregation laws at the time it was built.

Hopefully they've relabeled

Hopefully they've relabeled some of the excess Men's rooms as Ladies' rooms.