It stinks being a girl sometimes. You know that the sports equipment you’ll be using during gym class is most often the guys’ hand-me-downs. You will most likely not make the same salary that a man would at a similar job, especially in the corporate world. And you will definitely have to wait longer to pee at any local fair, ball game, or concert that you attend than your boyfriend, because of the hordes of girls just like you all in line for too few toilets.
Thank God someone finally thought of the obvious.
Last Wednesday, 54,000 women were expected to stampede Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales to attend a Take That concert, that number being an estimated 90% of the entire concert’s population. Worried that the gross unbalance of the sexes attending could have spelled disaster in the sanitation department, Paul Sergeant and Rupert Moon, stadium chief executive and communications manager, respectively, took charge of the situation. Over 100 of the men’s toilets were re-assigned to be ladies’ toilets, and many extra porta-potties were brought in to cover the gender imbalance. This was a relief to many of the female fans interviewed before the concert; those who were questioned cited long lines at the toilets as the main irritation they encounter at such events, especially when one of the songs missed might be a sentimental favorite.
I think this is a great idea. In 1997 I was so fed up during a Cavalier’s game at Gund Arena (now renamed) for this reason, that I went into the Men’s room and peed. The whole concept of having the same number of toilets for men as women never did make sense to me, seeing as men can use urinals more quickly than women can pee in stalls. (Yes, I know guys drink beer at sporting events and they have to pee, but they get to stand up while doing it, and can pee at a big trough with other guys at the same time. We need to go with a girlfriend and play with our hair and stuff, and we can’t do that at a urinal.)
The boy group, founded in 1990 and disbanded in 1996, was extremely popular among young English girls. They were so popular in fact that the Samaritans, a British and Irish-based counseling organization aimed at preventing suicides, set up hotlines to address fans hysterical over the group’s disbanding. Rumors of its reunion tour found their way into the mainstream around November of 2005.
If you are curious as to Take That’s style of music, here’s a page with a couple of sound bytes. That made me lay awake at night and pray for the boy band era to indeed be gone for good. Led Zeppelin forever!!!