Tuesday 24 February 2015

I stand toilet sentry.


I am retired. I am old. I think I am dying. But I will never quit what I am doing now. I love it. It keeps me occupied. It kills time for me. I stand sentry at the toilet at one of the busiest work office towers in town. People pay me to unload their crap. I get 20 cents for every patron. For a pack of tissues, I charge an additional 20 cents. They drop it in a container with this corny line: "One small drop for me; one big one for you".

I see people from all walks of life coming to take either a leak or a poo in my toilet. On some days, I get more poopers than leakers. But on a whole, leakers outnumbered poopers. I wash both toilets at regular intervals mostly in the morning and evening. I close the crap bank - as I call it - after 8 at night. I have no rest because standing sentry is my rest. I enjoy the coming in and going out (pun intended) and I feel deeply that I am doing my patrons a big favor (in getting rid of their disfavor).

Imagine that there is no toilet available when you need it most; when your levee is threatened by 
a tsunami of rear and frontal avalanche. What would you do? How would you react? I can picture the agony and I therefore treasure the assisting role I play for these urgent disposal units making their timely, as well as untimely, forays into the open abyss of free-dump.

So I keep them clean and ready for my paying customers. And if the toilets are clean, smelling fragrant, they will surely come. In fact, a few patrons even told me that they much prefer to take a dump in my toilet than the other toilets nearby. They said to me deadpan that 
my shit-hole looks, smells and sits better than the others.

I take great pride in that. I feel triumphant actually. Simple pleasure, some may say. But I am glad that I can be of service to these grateful patrons. I mean, what can be more important in life than to be there in their hour of need and release. Friendships have been built on much lesser actually. 

Of course, even the best job has its challenges. Mine is no different. I have my days when the poppers and leakers somehow conspire to push my buttons. I will spare you the unwholesome details but suffice to say, they could really use some front-line target practice and a little rear-end consideration.

And then, there is this strange contradiction I encounter with the users. I will not mince my words here. I note that the prettiest ones often give out the stinkIest crap. No joke. This is at least my experience for the longest time. The correlation has stood the test of time. It may be bad digestion or food poisoning or something but if it is a matter of coincidence, then it is really strange.

I know of a few who looks really good on the outside. They have that trophy countenances and a wonderful body to boot. They look like walking Christmas tree all decked up for a celebration. But what lingered behind after the uncomplimentary release is a hideous civil offence that deserves no presidential pardon. In fact, the very unpresidential thing they have done was to drop a series of carpet bombings onto a defenseless smooth-faced receptacle and for that, they are far removed from the public image they so consciously project. Sorry for the melodrama but it kinds of remind me of this lesson: Looks can be deceiving. Outer beauty just don't necessarily mean innard beauty.

Then, there are those who refuses to pay for their disposal fees. For 20 cents, these defaulters would lie about it. I find it quite emotionally disturbing. I once confronted one of them and he told me unblinking that he had paid. When I directed his attention to 
an empty container, he would accuse me of hiding the coin. Another lesson in life perhaps? Some people will do anything to save their own backside. I call them the stuck-up-there toilet users (another pun intended).

Notwithstanding all that, I still love my job. Its satisfaction is derived from the satisfaction that my off-loaders get when their business is done. It is vicarious pleasure of the most uninviting kind I know. Still, I am glad that I play a part in ensuring a conducive environment for my 
patrons to dispense with the dispensable and to discharge the dischargeable. I see myself as a bridge between digestion and eviction; a midwife of sorts to cradle off the unwanted. And if there is a heaven ruled by bladders and bowels, I would have been its patron saint of honor, gory and mercy. Hey, a man can dream right? Cheerz.

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