Nov 18 2009

Toilet Talk, a LiveJournal Repost

Chooch is sick, won’t let me sit with him on the couch. For a long time this morning, I was told to “go in the kitchen and stand by the oven. Leave me ALONE!” But then he softened and crumpled into a sick heap on the couch and whined, “I wanna watch sumpin’ scary!” So we watched Friday the 13th together. The one with Corey Feldman. At one time, I knew every movie in order. But now I’m an old broad and actually forgot that Corey Feldman was even in any of these until I put it on this morning. And Chooch, god bless him, every time someone gets kilt, he goes, “Who did it?” Um, Jason, maybe? Stupid.

But now it’s over and I’ve been banished from the couch again. So, with nothing else to do and no motivation to paint right now (that’s after hours, now you know), I’ve been reading through all old LiveJournal entries, trying to find something in particular. Instead, I found a series of posts written from my second-to-last job at the data processing monkey house. While I was reading these, all I could think was, “It’s a fucking wonder I was never fired from there” and “Wait – did I ever do any work?” I’m sure Collin can answer that last one.

Then I found two entries about the bathroom there and it simultaneously made me miss that place and swallow throw-up. I’m reposting it because I have nothing else to say while I await the next Freaky Feature subject to bare her soul for me. (It should be a good one, too!)

Oh, and P.S.! Thanks to Andrea, Tiff, and Dorothy for sending me magnets! More on that later this week, too. (I’m still looking for more magnets, btw!)

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Bathroom Discourse

August 2007

One of my favorite things about working here is playing a little game called “What In the World Will Make Erin Dry Heave Tonight?” Could it be the dumpster in the outside hallway, long overdue for an emptying, contents ripe and roiling in the August humidity, the putrid stench of which permeates through the tiniest nook and cranny and wafts its way in sinister coils into our work areas and kitchen where it gyrates near the fridge and dares us to retain our appetite?

Maybe Jonnie May the Security Guard will want to shoot the shit with me and I’ll be forced to fixate on her dirty snaggle tooth while being held against my will in the bubble of rot we around here call “the kitchen.”

Mostly, it’s as simple as taking a stroll through the restroom.

If it’s a particularly good day, I’ll arrive right on the heels of some nasty ass broad pinching a loaf after devouring a petting farm, and then forgoing the courtesy flush and Glade spritz. Because nothing complements a fresh cascade of diarrhea than the crisp notes of apple cinnamon.

Maybe a tampon, bloated with toilet water and menstruation, will be fanned out like pretty cotton origami bouncing off the sides of the toilet bowl.

Last week was a memorable delight that I took great pleasure penning in my diary with flourishing strokes of calligraphy: Along the side of one of the sinks was a bright, thick streak of  Red.

Oh look, it’s 1976 and a blind extra just walked in here from the set of Carrie and mistook the sink for a towel. I tried to shrug it off as an average day at MSA.

Or maybe someone performed an auto-kidney extraction next to the commode because they don’t have the Internet at home and needed to list it on eBay immediately. I hope they made it back to their desk to do that.

Maybe someone was eating a heavily ketchup’d burger next to the sink because they have some weird disorder where they need to watch the reflection of their teeth gnashing. This is a true condition. Janna has it.

Maybe some bathroom birthing enthusiast shot one out and left the remains of the placenta on the porcelain in lieu of a victory flag.

No matter the scenario, I wasn’t going anywhere near that sink and subsequently failed to eradicate the memory of it from my mind for two days. Look, I’m a girl and I too put on my menstrual party hat every month, but I don’t swipe a veritable advertisement of it on the sink as an invitation. Though really, I’m hoping the blood flowed from an orifice not betwixt legs. (Sometimes it feels like I’m in the bathroom of CBGBs and I half-expect to step over someone in the throes of over-dosing.)

Then on Friday, the industrial-sized roll of toilet paper in one of the stalls had fallen out and was strewn dejectedly near the base of the toilet, where countless strands of bacteria were inevitably colonizing. I continued on to the handicap stall. While I was basket weaving (what, you don’t think I perform regular bodily waste removal like the rest of you, do you?), I noticed a rather large box, with a built-in handle, off the right of the stall, half-concealed in aged Christmas wrapping paper. A post-it note adhered to the top informed me that it belonged to our new employee, Babi, and to “Pls not remove, Thank U.”

Of course, my gossip-greedy fingers spun it around to the non-gift-wrapped side. It was a toilet seat raiser. I’m excited to have a new mystery to involve myself in: Why does the new lady need raised upon the toilet, and why doesn’t she stow it away discretely in the utility closet so assholes like me don’t make fun of her on the Internet?

Oh wait, she is concealing it. With wrapping paper.

Operation: Photograph Toilet Seat Raiser

I was on a mission when I got to work last night: to acquire evidence of the Christmas-papered toilet seat raiser. Every twenty minutes or so, I’d stuff my cell phone into my pants and duck into the restroom, hoping that Babi had finally stowed it away in the handicapped stall. Three hours into the shift, I began to have doubts and started to wonder if Babi had quit. I think I voiced my concern a little too emphatically to Eleanore, whose answer of, “I don’t know, babe,” seemed coated with suspicion, because who the fuck cares about New Employee’s status? Well, I do. My hands were actually trembling, I’m embarrassed to admit. I finally found out that she had merely called off, and I was relieved. I mean, she can quit, but not until I get my picture.

It took Babi several hours to hit up the bathroom tonight, but she eventually did. I mean, she’s old. How long can the elders really hold their bladder?

Raised eyebrows were probably flashed every time I walked in and walked back out. What? I’m checking for my period. It’s usually over there, in that corner, with a purple Post-It note on it. Your period doesn’t have a name tag on it, too?

I forgot to turn the sound off of my phone during the bathroom recon, so the enchanting melodies of a boing-ing spring ricocheted off the tiled walls, like I opened up a can of clown sex. It nearly gave me a stroke.

5 comments

5 Comments so far

  1. laurapalmer813 November 18th, 2009 1:48 pm

    Some of my favorite of your posts, EVER! :)

  2. Tuna Tar-Tart November 18th, 2009 6:17 pm

    Why thank you, lady! <3

  3. Andrea November 18th, 2009 2:20 pm

    you effing rule…I’m so scared to use the bathroom at my work…you’d think that with working in a lab and all, it might be a tad on the sanitary side. There is always someone shitting in there. Always. One time this crazy bitch told me (because I’m the supervisor and obviously in charge of all janitorial duties as well as all other shit work) that someone had “made a mess” in the bathroom. ( on a side note, I’m sure it was her)
    I got the real janitor and my boss and we went in to check it out. It was in the handicapped stall (why is it always) and it appeared someone had been murdered in there. The toilet wouldn’t flush and there was blood on the walls even. I got so ill I swear I almost passed out on the filthy floor. My boss and the janitor seemed unfazed. Jesus, why are some women such filthy disgusting creatures? I wish I could use the mens room

  4. Tuna Tar-Tart November 18th, 2009 6:20 pm

    Oh my GOD that’s some grotesque imagery! Isn’t it ridiculous – us ladies are supposed to be all sweet and CLEAN. I couldn’t imagine doing such damage to a restroom like that, especially at WORK!

  5. Janna November 19th, 2009 3:20 am

    Poor sicky Chooch. Is it worse than he’s had before if he’s actually laying down this time?

    You had some good stories from that place. The blood on the sink has a new possibility if you consider the time(s) you heard gun shots somewhere not far away. Did you ever write about your adventures to the scary upstairs bathroom?

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