In which Our Hero butts up against the stupidest.
Our world contains two types of problems:
- Problems of physics/math
- Problems of people
The first type is insurmountable. No amount of bargaining, negotiating, coercing, or bribing will affect these Truths.
The second type is negotiable. Fudgable. Affectable. Mushy. With enough charisma or know-how, you can cajole and sneak your way through.
Much debate occurs at their interface. Science itself is the experimental method of sorting observations into one category or the other.
Today, I drew a picture. A beautiful picture. Water running in pipes through a wall. The human harnessing of physics to achieve hygiene through handwashing and safety through sewage: perhaps the greatest lifesaving invention of the last millennium.
And now some goddamn housing code tells me I can’t. Not because the physics fails. Not for any harm to others. Not even for any harm to myself. But simply because some bureaucrat wrote some rule that says I need additional space in front of my toilet.
This code is not reasonable.
This code is not logical.
This code is not practical.
This code should not apply to what I do in my own house.
Yet now I have to visit the Department of Buildings office hours yet again on Tuesday to see if I can formulate new drawings that can pass this ridiculous code. Not for the reason that the code matters. Simply because that’s what it is.
I. Despise. This. Code.
Julian Wise 