Jake Pepper of Joelton says that the publicity surrounding the arrest of U. S. Sen. Larry Craig in the men’s room of the Minneapolis airport has made him uneasy whenever he enters a public bathroom.“I’m kind of a nervous guy, and I tap my feet and jiggle my legs all the time,” he says. “Until I read about that senator getting arrested for tapping his feet and waving his hands around, I had no idea that stuff was a signal of anything.”Craig, an Idaho Republican, was arrested by an undercover officer after tapping his foot and running his hand under the stall partition, according to the officer. Such signals, those in the know say, are used to arrange bathroom sex.Craig also admitted that his foot came in contact with the foot of the officer in the adjoining stall, but explained that this was not a signal for sex, but a consequence of having what the senator termed a “wide stance” at the toilet.“Well, that’s kind of a problem, too,” Pepper says. “I have a wide stance. Always have, but I never thought anything about it.“But now,” he adds, “when I go into a bathroom, especially at the airport, with my tapping feet and wide stance, I’m making myself a target. I may be so nervous I can’t even go, if you know what I mean.”Pepper heads off the obvious question.“I’m not gay,” he says. “I’m not using being a wide-stanced foot tapper as a cover for anything. I mean, my personal life isn’t perfect or anything. I’ve been married three times, and my ex-wives and kids can’t stand me. But that’s not against the law, either.”
