I was there to cover someone's shift and ended up in the roll sheet for closing duties: cleaning the men's bathroom. In the four years I've spent with the Company, I've cleaned the bathrooms about three times. But that's okay. I roll with the punches and can figure out the sure-to-be arcane process they want us to follow to do my chore. I sucked it up.
A newer girl was in charge of cleaning the women's restroom. I harkened back to just a couple hours previous when I was commenting to a work buddy how awful that general area smelled but, upon entering the men's room, I saw nothing to be disgusted by. That's when she launched out of the girl's room shrieking.
"Lord Jesus, help me," she cried. "There is no way on God's green earth ..."
I went in and opened the door to stall 1. Explosive diarrhea. Everywhere. Except in the toilet.
The rest of the closing crew came over to check it out and immediately started gagging. I was laughing too hard. Greenish-brown sludge slid down the walls and pooled behind seat and behind the bowl. It seriously projectiled out and, surprisingly, no one seemed to notice a woman scurrying out of the building covered in dookie. Because no one could make a mess like that and escape clean.
It should be noted I can smell very little. My sniffer is notoriously awful when it comes to picking up a scent and I've been questioned many times about why I love food so much when I can't even taste it. That is something to be answered at another time.
So I was the only one not gagging. The vision alone was enough to summon the previous meal but, once I regained my composure, my steel-walled stomach held its ground. As soon as I was the only one able to keep calm before the intestinal explosion, the mop was passed to me.
I probably worked at the mess for almost an hour, scrubbing and wiping, pushing brownish-green water around and bossing my weaker associates. "Bring me more mop water!" "I need a trash bag!" While I worked in one stall, the other two worked on cleaning out the "magic box" in the other only to find used tampons outside of the biohazard bag. "You hold the bag and I'll clean out the box," the girl nearly whimpered. So he held the bag at an arm's length while she scooped the contents of the box up into her begloved hand. As soon as he took a look at the material, the guy dropped the bag and dashed out of the room, nearly vomiting. I put down my poopie mop and picked up the bag, if only to stop the whining from the girl holding someone's used plug.
When 10:00 rolled around, I was told to stop cleaning. Maintenence people were going to come in the morning and I'd made good progress, cleaning about 60 - 70% of the mess. I left: traces in the brick wall, some spattering on the stall walls, a pool behind the commode and some runnoff into the next stall and around the base of the toilet. I listened to my cohorts complain about needing a raise the whole time.
About two years ago, I was sitting in a comfortable chair in my cubicle, waiting for editorial to send me stories to publish.
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