BATHROOM HUMOUR

My morning started off with a homeless guy asking if he could use the bathroom. He looked like he had been dragged behind a car a couple of blocks. His face was filthy, and his clothes were torn, but at least I couldn’t smell him from where I was.

“Excuse me?” he said, from just inside the door. I was serving someone at the time and was a little distracted. “Can I use the bathroom?”

The angel on my shoulder said, “Be a good Catholic and let him used the damn bathroom – he’s harmless.” But the devil, or at least common sense said, “You’re only asking for trouble.”

Common sense won out. I’ve had to clean up shit off the bathroom floor one too many times.

“Sorry Dude, the bathroom is for customers.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Shit on the fucking street?’ he started yelling.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re going to do in there and whatever it is, I don’t want to clean it up.”

The woman I was serving stood there frigid; Matilda looked over the top of her paper to see if this was going to get ugly. The homeless guy left cursing.

“Sorry about that,” I said to the woman I was helping.

“It’s totally understandable.”

“It’s not that I don’t sympathize with his plight, but they can really do a number on that washroom. Last week someone shoved a pen down the toilet and we had to call Roto Rooter.”

“I understand completely.”

“I don’t know why we don’t have those coin operated washrooms like every other city does. They work!”



Later this old man who lives in my building came in; I showed him how to used the laundry machine. At the time I just assumed he had been so dependent on someone to his house work for him, he never learned to do them himself. He smiles at me whenever he sees me since; but he never recognizes me at the shop. Ollie thinks he has Alzheimer’s.

“I’ll have single espresso,” he said.

Simple enough. Then he started mumbling and pointing at the display case.

“A muffin?”

He shook his head no and mumbled something else.

“Sir, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

Again, he pointed at the display case. This time I stuck my head in, trying to see where his finger was pointing, but he was making circles with it. I started rhyming things off, hoping it would trigger a memory of the words he was trying to say. He’d come up with espresso after all.

“I don’t know why I just can’t keep pointing until you find it.”

“Sir, I’m trying, I really am.”

I sighed and went to serve the next person in line while the old man just hovered in front of the display case.

“A broccoli croissant,” he said.

I wonder my smiles around the building have been cut off.



Half way through my shift someone came up to the counter and said, “I think either someone locked the key in the bathroom, or they died in there.”

I turned to Ollie and said, “Fuck I hate that bathroom.”

I got the spare key and knocked on the door a few times. No answer. I put the key in the lock and the pounded on the door one more time. “Hello?” I shouted. Still no answer. Looking away, I opened the door. It was empty.

People usually leave the key on the sink when they leave it in the bathroom. I checked for it, but it wasn’t there. I looked on the floor, the toilet, on top of the paper towel dispenser…. it was nowhere to be seen. There was a lump of wet paper towel on the rim of the sink and the light was out.

“Great, someone stole our bathroom key.” The woman waiting to use it was right behind me. “Do you want me to change the light first, or can you do what you need to do in the dark?”

“I’ll be fine.”

After she was done, Ollie went to change the light bulb. “I found the key,” he said. “You’ll never guess where it was.” I followed him to the bathroom and looked once more for the key.

“Let me guess…it’s in front of my face, right?”

Ollie nodded yes. For the life of me, I couldn’t see it.

“I give up.”

“Most people don’t look up,” he said.

The key was dangling from one of the ceiling tiles in the corner.

“Mother fuck,” I said.

“And the light was unscrewed.”

“God, I hate to think what else is stashed in here.”

Ollie swung the lid of the garbage can. Both of us looked for needles or blood stained toilet paper. There wasn’t any.

“Probably some homeless guy's revenge for not letting him use the bathroom.”




GarpinBC