toilet Across our nation today, some embarrassingly small percentage of Americans went to the polls to elect their leaders—in nearly all races, choosing from candidates of excremental extremes.

Meanwhile, here in Long Beach, city health officer Dr. Helene Calvet was ordering the closure of our recreational waterfront—again—because of sewage contamination. This time, it was a 50,000-gallon spill that blurched out of Burbank and came to town via the Los Angeles River.

This is always such a drag, and in fact our familiarity with the contamination-response procedure seems makes it even more burdensome—beginning with the Health Department’s sounds-like-cosigning announcement that having 50,000 of crap lapping onto our shores is “unlikely to seriously impact the water quality.”

Water-based recreational activities will be prohibited on all open coastal beaches for a few days while scientists periodically check the bacterial levels in the water. The good thing is, somebody warned the sea lions, birds and fish. And if you observe a little patience, just watch—when the percentages of poison fall to within California’s standards again, everybody’s going to be invited back into the water!

At the moment, however, there’s a big, loud celebration on TV—balloons are falling from a ballroom ceiling while a band plays and a bunch of people overgrin in ways that reveal a mouthful of bad intentions, which until now you were sure were just teeth. Somewhere, somebody has won an election—and what’s weird is that I suddenly catch a gagging whiff of something unmistakably sewery, although it doesn’t take long to figure out who is responsible.

And what’s weird—well,  actually kinda terrifying—is that I haven’t been anywhere near the beach.