Don't Hurt Me!

I'm just back from my one-month Dr's appointment in Roanoke. I personally thought it went dismally and was a total failure, but the doctor and his staff assure me that it was a wonderful and successful visit and that I'm to be very happy. OK. I'm happy. Huzzah, huzzah.

Anyway, as I was turning onto McClanahan from Franklin St, right there at the intersection, a billboard caught my eye. The initial reason it struck me was because it was ugly, and I don't mean just in the picture and the subject matter, but it was laid out about the stupidest of any billboard I've ever seen. On the right hand side was a baby, lying down, on his tummy, in his diapie. He was crying, not bawling his eyes out, no tears, just possum-crying, like he was about as cranky as I've been the past week or so. Like maybe his diapie was a little wet, not that that's been my particular problem in the crankiness area. That's all that was on the billboard. That baby, then a bright blue background. The bright blue background filled up the whole center and left side, plus enveloped the baby. It was so badly designed, that's why it first got my attention. The ugly cranky possum-crying baby was secondary.

So you've got your cranky baby, and a sea of blue. Now, at the top of this billboard in big yellow letters it said, and I quote, "Why you shouldn't circumcise."

Now. Where to start. First of all, I did make the turn onto McClanahan without 1) wrecking, or 2) screaming.

Is this something I'm unaware of? That there's a battle for the infant foreskin going on out there and I've been in the dark about it all? Do people actually debate this issue? And even if they do, what do you care if I choose circumcision for my ugly cranky possum-crying infant? Or is that the issue? Does circumcision make a cranky baby grow up into a cranky adult?

Anyway, at the bottom of this, The Ugliest Billboard In Town, in small print, was a url. You know I had to, didn't you. And you know you have to, too, don't you?

http://www.nocirc.org/

It's worth going there to see their logo. Babies of all creeds and colors dropping their rattles to hoist the flag of anti-circumcision. There's an essay contest, that one's nice. I read the winning essay. It left me kind of confused. What college guy in his right mind would go around dissing circumcision? Actually, I have an answer to that question, and you probably do too, so we'll just leave it at that.

I don't know. I don't know ethnicity, religion, or anything else. I just know that if I had one of those things, and believe me, I'm rather glad I don't, I'd sure as hell want it circumcised. I don't care if it did make me a cranky baby.

I'm good in that role, anyway.