A Story of Integrity in the Face of Sheer Embarrassment
It isn’t often that I am able to witness an act of absolute humility and shamelessness as the astute acknowledgment of private, personal dirty deeds gone way, way wrong.
Yesterday morning I was at work in the early goings of what was shaping up to be a typical, uneventful day at the shop when “Jane” showed up to wait for her 9:30 oil change. Jane is about 45 years old with natural looking dirty blond hair and an upbeat, always smiling personality. I could tell she’d already had her share of caffeine as she bounced up to the counter at 9:29 that morning.
I took her keys and assigned the job to one of the techs out back. After a few minutes of small talk about the new job Jane had just landed selling insurance for AFLAC, she sat down in the waiting room and picked up a magazine. I went back to the computer in the office and continued preparing the report I’d been working on, as I had before Jane showed up for her appointment.
After about 15 minutes, Jane got up and asked me if she could us the restroom. Although I momentarily found this to be an odd request in and of itself, I smiled slightly and nodded and she went into the restroom, which is located right next to the office.
After she hadn’t come out after 90 seconds had passed, I knew that she was dropping a deuce in there. I thought nothing of it. The customer restroom in the office is a common destination for almost all of the local female parts drivers and many of our female clients. It took me a long time to figure out why this is, but one day it occurred to me that women like clean restrooms, and I keep the one in the office very nice and tidy. Chances are good that it is much cleaner at the shop than it is in the unisex bathrooms at the local parts houses. I guess my toilet is a pleasant place to poop.
By the time she’d finished, I’d already received her paperwork back from the technician and prepared her invoice. I heard the “wooosh” of the toilet and the immediate subsequent “CSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” of the aerosol odor neutralizer and I knew she’d be out soon. I always find it quite amusing that women always hit the spray button at the exact loudest point of the toilet’s flush, as if they’re going to mask the fact that a) they were actually taking a shit in there; and b) that their shit actually stinks.
None of this was out of the ordinary. The amazing part occurred afterward.
She came out, walked up to the counter, looked right at me and said, “Mike, do you have a plunger? I didn’t see one in there.”
This is all kinds of fucked up. She actually choked the shitter!!
I almost asked why, but then it occurred to me that this was an historic event in the evolution of shameless shitting and that I’d better not fuck it up.
I told her not to worry about it, and that I’d take care of it.
“No. You’d better let me handle this,” she replied matter-of-factly, never breaking eye contact.
I said OK and went upstairs to the employee restroom and retrieved the plunger. As I made my way back down the stairs, I passed the same technician who’d worked on Jane’s car. He saw what I had and shot me a strange look; I just grinned and went back into the office and handed the item to Jane, who went back in and took care of the mess she’d apparently made. She left the plunger in the bathroom as she closed the door behind her.
“My husband tried to tell me that it was the toilet at home, but I knew better!!” She quipped with an unadulterated enthusiasm that would have made Jenny McCarthy proud.
I buried my upper front teeth into my lower lip to prevent bursting out into insane, immature laughter as I couldn’t help but wonder to myself, ‘how often does this happen?’
She pleasantly paid her bill, handed me one of her new business cards and left, head held high with her dignity intact. After she was gone, I realized what an extremely rare event this was. Here we had a woman, a middle aged, professional woman with literally no embarrassment whatsoever over the fact that her excrement had the diameter of a zucchini and the density of modeling clay.
This situation brought back memories of all of the times that I myself have violated public commodes, only to leave them for the next poor bastard to encounter, and ultimately for some unfortunate immigrant to clean up. For a second I actually started to feel a little bad, but that didn’t last very long, as I immediately recalled an incident where I was the victim of an anonymous act of turd terrorism.
Several years ago I was working as a service writer for a nationwide chain of tire/auto repair stores when one day a significantly overweight, middle-aged man that I’d never seen before walked in and asked if we had a public restroom. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, and I thought nothing of it. Several minutes later, the man exited the bathroom and left the store without saying a word to anyone. Nothing seemed out of place, as his demeanor after the fact was that of the shamed shitter; the hurried, scurried walk straight out the door to the sanctity of his car. This is common behavior from men and women alike.
In fact, the entire incident was entirely forgotten until the next day when a female customer, already in the shop while waiting for services to be performed on her car, asked that I unlock the door to the ladies room, which also doubles as the handicapped, unisex restroom.
I remember thinking oddly of the fact that the door was locked. It was never locked unless it was occupied. I retrieved the key from the desk drawer and inserted it into the door handle. I opened the door and flicked the light on and just as I started to step out of the lady’s way, I was hit simultaneously with both the smell and the sight of dried fecal matter all over the toilet; all up the tank, on top of the tank-lid and down the sides of the bowl. It was fucking EVERYWHERE; all over the ceramic tiled walls and randomly splattered on the floor in the area surrounding the stool. I quickly closed the door and locked it. In a moment of maturity beyond my 24 years, I casually walked down the hall to the Men’s room, and after verifying that the room was clean and unoccupied, I offered her the Men’s room instead. She, not exactly oblivious to the nightmare in the other bathroom, politely accepted.
So to Jane, I salute you, for having the courage to face the fact that you’d defiled my toilet, and for manning up and rectifying the atrocities caused by your disproportionately red-meat laden diet.
Reader Comments
Bravo….good read.