Take your lascivious activites elsewhere

By Ruth Davenport

I wish I had an air horn. A big, shiny air horn that had a selection of noises ranging from the traditional "WAAAAAAAH!" to the old-school model-T Ford "ah-OOOOOOOOOOO-ga!"

Here’s why: I’m just plain had-it-up-to-here sick of couples who periodically arrest all their forward motion and convert their otherwise normal and productive energy into the most repugnant of public activities, sucking face with their significant other. I’d love to have an airhorn that I could just blow down their ear when I see them engaged in this highly reprehensible behaviour, just to make it clear to them how all-around garishly freak-showy they are. Aside from anything else, making someone jump when they’re swapping saliva could be darned entertaining. Maybe someone would be so surprised they’d accidentally bite down. That I’d pay to see.

Yes, after four years of pounding these dusty and crowded hallways, I’ve seen enough tonsil hockey to write a rulebook and I’m ready, willing and proud to tell anyone who’s ever flaunted the fact that their tongue has been hybridized with a jumping bean that they have no place in civilized society. Snogging, necking, groping, petting–whatever you want to call it, there’s a time and a place and it ain’t here or now.

What really floors me is the number of people who share my opinion and the number of people who, in spite of continuous repercussions, continue to go spelunking with their tongue in other people’s stomachs. Maybe they just can’t help it. Maybe I’m not being understanding or sensitive enough to the needs of these poor tandems, but I have a significant other too (so I am getting some!), and the day he starts mauling me in public is the day he discovers the joys of proctology. I simply fail to understand why it’s necessary to make such public declarations of "togetherness."

Is it a matter of possession? Is this how these couples stake their claim to each other? If that’s the case, I suggest that it would be easier and quicker just to pee on the significant other. No one else would come within 10 feet of them and I bet there’d be a lot less fluid involved.

Or maybe it really is sincere. Maybe these people are in an agony of parting and simply want the other to know the depth of their emotion, but I just think that slobber on my face doesn’t say "I love you" so much as "my mother was a St. Bernard" or maybe "my saliva glands have organized a mutiny." Besides, I’m very curious as to what these couples do in their time alone together, because, after all that effort of the public declaration of adoration, what’s really left to do? Needlework, perhaps?

Apparently I’m missing something crucial here because the concept of excessive demonstrations never appealed to me. It’s undignified and pretentious and undermines the value of any true declaration of affection either party may choose to make. If I grab someone in the hall and stuff my tongue down their throat, chances are I’ve been paid to do it. I just don’t know why you wouldn’t save all that physical prowess for a private location where you can let loose and say or do anything without the inhibition of distractions like cell phones, seeing eye dogs or crazy people with air horns.

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