Public/Private Partnership

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner has his version, which has been criticized as vague, and so does this Montclair hardware store. Its version is not vague so much as contradictory.


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I was shopping in the store, asked if they had a men’s room, and was given directions to find it in the back corner of the store. No problem at all.

I get inside, close the folding door and discover that, taking the sign at its word, I shouldn’t be there at all.

Well. Does this mean the store wants to have it both ways?

That is, the bathroom is public for customers who meet its unspoken, undetectable standards, but can be declared private to bar those who don’t from soiling it? Not that it’s exactly the scrub room from Grey’s Anatomy.

If so, why put the sign only on the inside of the door, so that–let’s say you found it on your own–by the time you discover there is a rule you have already broken it?

Or am I reading too much into the sign, literally and figuratively?

Confession: I have occasionally been called a "hopeless literalist" or "Mr. Literal." Now, I think I’m as imaginatively unfettered as the next guy. What I am hopelessly literal about is clarity and precision in language. (Boy does that sound like I have a broom you know where.)

I wish I could turn it off and on–no I don’t, I wish the world took language as seriously as writers do. For me, it’s as hard to read sloppy, thoughtless language, no matter where, as it is to eat bad-tasting food or listen to mind numbing music.

I guess my mother said it best, many years ago:

"You’re so picky!"

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