Janitorial Injustice…
Monday, June 28th, 2010So George and I have taken the plunge and started the Medifast diet (referred by our doctor) and we’re very excited (read: George, while fully on board, is WAY more pissed about this than I excpected…he repeatedly texts me throughout the day w/messages like "I WANT PIE!" It’s super fun). So, because we started this program, which includes 5 meals per day (provided by the company, shipped right to your door, and no, I don’t get referral fees if you join, though I admit that I tried to find something like that…hey! don’t judge me! This shit’s expensive!) and one "Lean and Green" meal per day that you prepare for yourself. Today is our first day and we’re doing okay (I = Hungry messages back and forth notwithstanding). The only problem so far, for me at least, is how damn much I have to PEE. I didn’t think I was drinking more water than usual…I tend to drink lots of it anyway, plus numerous 44oz cups of ice…yes, it’s an obsession, no, I do NOT in fact care if it’s bad for me…been doing it since I was a kid and I’m not stopping no matter HOW much you love me and try to convince me otherwise.
Where was I? No, besides Scatteredville…
Oh yeah…peeing. So because I’m peeing all the freakin’ time, I have run into the old Bathroom Annoyances situations again, much like when I was pregnant. This means that on several occasions, I will be pottying when the janitor people come in to replace toilet paper and paper towels and to do…whatever else it is they do. (note that they refuse to do this at night, but rather only during the day, 74 TIMES a day, and only–ONLY–when I am in there. More to the point, only when I have just settled in and was planning on having freakin’ PRIVACY.)
Today was no different. And today was even more appalling. Perhaps I can better explain by giving you a dialog of sorts, putting you in the seat, if you will, along with me.
Gracie: Places all paraphenalia on teeny tiny little "shelf," performs Potty Seat ritual (inspect for drips, drops, hairs, and such), use gobs of TP to clean seat off again anyway, Just In Case, then prepare seat for Sittin’, then…I sit.
Janitor, two seconds later: BANG BANG BANG!!! (this is on the outside of the restroom door, and is so loud, a few items detach themselves from my person, including my eyeballs. I also jump approximately 2.4 feet in the air.)
Gracie, pissed off because she knows who might be knocking on the door, resists the urge to do as she often does when people knock to be let in, which is to call out, all sing-songy "Whoooo IIIISSSS IIIIIT???", instead hollers out "SOMEONE’S IN HERE!"
Janitor: BANG BANG BANG!!!
Gracie: YEAH! JUST. A. MIIIINUTE please!! SOmene is IN HERE!"
Janitor: Ignores Gracie and enters anyway. Note that this is not a female, so I’m alarmed. Boys are not ALLOWED in girl’s bathrooms, and I’m pretty sure that’s a law (known as GL576, or Gracie’s Law, for short). This all happens in the span of about 12 seconds, MAX.
Gracie: Rolls eyes to nobody in particular and continues performing the duties the room insists I perform, while huffing and muttering my distaste for him doing this anyway. This included deep sighing and things like my favorite word of late, “unbeLEEEVable!”
Janitor: Goes into other stall, swaps out toilet paper (sidebar: did you know that when they do this, they don’t save the toilet paper they change, but instead just throw it in the TRASH?? That’s right…half-used TP rolls, in perfectly good condition, just tossed in the trash can!), replaces the paper towel roll in our fancy new auto-towel dispenser, checks the levels in the auto-soap dispenser, etc., etc., and I figure he just doesn’t care that I’m in there and is just doing what he’s supposed to and will just ignore the stall I’m in. That’s what the women janitors tend to do, at least thus far.
But…I, as you might suspect, was wrong. Very, very wrong.
All of a sudden, as I’m mid…well…finishing things up, the Janitor tries to enter my stall. Note that the jackass doesn’t knock on the stall door, doesn’t even try to open it softly. Nope. He practically rams his full 200+ pounds into it on the first try. And then? When he finds it locked? (Thank KEE-RIIIIST I remembered to lock it!) He leaves.
hahahaha, you’re so gullible. No, he does NOT leave, or apologize, or anything of the sort. He instead TRIES AGAIN. Like maybe someone locked it only SLIGHTLY as a joke and if he just really puts some muscle behind it, it’ll relent and grant him entrée.
When, again, the door refuses to budge, he yells out “SOMEONE IN THERE???” which is clearly the most brilliant question ever asked. Right up there with “Where’s the Beef?” and “Pee-Yew! Was that YOU or the cow farm we just passed??”
Gracie: Who is only just getting her heart up off the floor and back into her chest and trying to reposition her ass back on the seat, as this is the SECOND time she has slipped partially off the bowl as a result of Janitorial Terror, calls out, clearly annoyed, “Uhh…YEEEEAHHHH??”
Janitor: Pissed off AT ME for being there, walks off muttering “Well GEEZ, why the hell didn’t you answer me when I knocked!?!?”
Gracie: *oh no he DIH-INT!* “Um, I DID. TWICE. And even made noises loud enough for you to hear while you were working in the other stalls!”
Janitor: *Crickets*
Cause I’m alone. He left.
I finish my business, wash my hands, and as I’m leaving I see him in the hallway with another Janitorial Jackass leaning on their respective Wheeled Trash Barrels, with the older one bitching to the younger one about stupid corporate people. I, naturally, glared at him, right in the eye, and gave my best “Shame on you, you mannerless CLOD!” look which, as we all know, destroys people and makes them need therapy.
I know. It’s fun living in my world.
So there you have it. Should you require a job, and you are either unable or unwilling to hear? And want a job that requires it nonetheless? Please come apply in my building. Hurry or you might miss me!
~G.
