My Janitorial Dreams

It occured to me today that people can be herded as easily as goats, if not easier, since goats do not follow written instruction. Case in point: when I forgot to grab pickle wedges at the grocery store the other day, I had to turn around and fight against shopping cart traffic like a salmon swimming upstream because the store is arranged to maintain a steady flow through as many aisles as possible. Angered, I lashed out at the giant corporate grocery by abandoning my cart blocking the path in front of the lobster tank then taped a sign that read "SALE!" to the side of my cart, filled with just about everything but pickles. A mob formed quickly, further blocking traffic to the hotdogs and dairy section and resulting in such abysmal sales of lobsters that the fishing off the coast of Maine has temporarily come to a halt. Or so I'm told.

Which is why, if I am ever promoted from grad student to janitor, I will employ similar tactics to perform my duties with efficiency and ease. For example, I fully intend to clean no more than two toilets a day, no matter if there are three or four per bathroom. Each morning I will simply close and lock the doors of all but one of the stalls, and voila - problem solved. Anyone who has to go badly enough to check the doors will find to his embarassment that each is occupied. Maybe since women lack the convenience of urinals, I will allow them two stalls on Fridays.

This may result in performance issues for the commodes in question, so I should remember to rotate weekly the unlocked stall in an attempt to balance wear and tear. I should take this opportunity to remind readers not to try this outside the professional environment - Mother nearly had my hide when I told her to either just be patient or to bathe in the kitchen sink. But we must face these trials by fire, we janitors. And to think, only eight years ago I was mop-boy at the bottom of the tube slide at McDonald's. A story for another day.