Thursday – Sea Monkeys and Cyber Cans
Feb. 28th, 2008 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about the role of the "courtesy flush" in the world of office politics. Everyone takes the idea of the courtesy flush for granted until they work with someone who doesn't subscribe to the protocol. It's hard to find out who these people are without placing a sentry outside of the restroom to catch them in action (or, in this case, inaction). Then, once you have one of them cornered, what do you do with them? Do you march them back into the stall and make them flush until the job is done? I say yes, if that's what it takes to get the idea through their inconsiderate heads that no one wants to know if they had corn for dinner last night unless we ask them the question point blank.
At The Corporation where I work now, the courtesy flush is made more complicated by the fact that we have robotic toilets that sense when they believe you are done and helpfully flush themselves. If, after you are dressed and ready to exit, you notice that a courtesy flush is needed, you have to get creative as you try to convince the toilet that it needs to try again. The best way I have found is to sit back down (fully dressed is fine), count to 10 (if you stand up again too fast the toilet thinks you are kidding and ignores you) and then exit the stall. After that, you stand passively in front of the cyber sink and let it decide when to turn the water on for you.
One gets used to being passive about this stuff, and robotic lavatories make people lazy about the things our mothers thought were in ingrained in us by the age of 6. I always remember to flush (as many times as it takes, thank you), but I have on occasion since I came to work here stood in front of a sink in a public restroom waiting for the water to turn on for me. Only after a few moments do I realize that the sink I am standing before expects me to lift the nozzle to initiate the handwashing. I'm sure that other people who see me leave the ladies room thinking, "Wow, there's something you don't see everyday – a moron who doesn't even know how to turn on a faucet."
At my last job, we had a mystery woman who, in the words of my friend The Cajun Queen, made a habit of "befouling" the women's restroom on an almost daily basis. I found it irritating, but The Queen found it infuriating to the point that if she had found out who it was, she would have done this person physical harm.
It all began a few months after we moved into our new office. At first, the Cajun Queen and I were the only women on our floor, as most of the suites around us were unoccupied. We liked this, because it was like having a restroom all our own. Then we discovered that women were coming from other floors to use the 3 stalls we thought of as our own, either because their floor's restroom was full, or because they weren't feeling well and didn't want their coworkers to know.
The Queen walked into the office one day with her face crinkled in disgust.
"Some lady's in the first stall frautching," she said, "It's gross. I guess she doesn't feel good. I wouldn't go in there for awhile if I were you."
I had never heard the term frautching before, and I'm guessing about how to spell it. I don't know if this is a word that The Queen made up, or if it's a Cajun term to describe what you do the night after you eat at a restaurant where food was not refrigerated properly. The Queen did not approve of frautching in a public restroom. If you were sick enough to frautch, she believed that you needed to stay home and do it on your own toilet.
Then we started noticing that every day, the first of the three stalls was badly constantly in need of a courtesy flush. "Somebody left their sea monkeys swimming in the toilet!" the Queen exclaimed in horror. Sea monkeys became permanent residents in our restroom, too. If the situation was desperate, I sometimes stood in the door and reached across the bowl with my leg to flush it using my foot. I can't really explain why, but the idea of reaching across with my arm was too awful, as if the contents of the toilet might jump out of the water and attack me.
When I was pregnant, I began to spend a lot of time in the restroom, because the weight of my growing son over my bladder meant that it couldn't comfortably hold more that a few tablespoons at a time. Since I was also very sensitive to smells at this time, I began to hate the Sea Monkey Lady as much as The Queen hated her. One day, I came very close to discovering her identity. I never saw her face, but I know that she had thick ankles and a propensity for ugly, square-toed practical shoes. When I walked into the restroom that day she grew quite and still, as if she were in there doing nothing at all, just sitting and relaxing. No noises came from the stall. She did not breath, she did not shuffle her feet. But I knew she was the one. She was in The Sea Monkey stall, for starters, and even if I couldn't see what was in the toilet, the evidence hung in the air I was breathing.
I made a filter out of toilet paper to put over my nose and camped out for a bit in my own stall, and still she did not move. When I couldn't linger any more, I got out and washed my hands a couple of times to make sure they were really, really clean. Still, no sign of life from the Sea Monkey stall. I went outside and stood there for awhile, hoping to catch her coming out of the door. She didn't. When I got back to my desk, the Queen was still at lunch. She walked in a few minutes later, and I told her that The Befouler was on our floor. The Queen's nostrils flared and her eyes grew wide, and she turned to run to the ladies room and hopefully confront her nemesis. As best I could, as pregnant as I was, I ran after her. We were too late, though. The Befouler was gone, and all that was left were her sea monkey spawn.
The Cajun Queen let out a string of epithets.
"Next time, we'll get her," I said, "I'm in here a lot these days, so it's only a matter of time. Look, I want her as bad as you do. If my baby comes out deformed, it'll be because I had to breathe this toxic air every day."
"You shouldn't have to," the Queen fumed, "None of us should, but especially not you in your condition."
"We'll get her," I said.
But we never did. Notes on the door and complaints to the management did no good. Somewhere in this large city I work in, the Befouler, a.k.a. the Sea Monkey Lady, is still at large. If you ever have the bad luck to walk into a restroom stall that she had been in, you'll know her by her sea monkey spawn. The only thing that matters to me, though, is that she no longer works in the same building I do, and she'd better hope she never does again. I'm not pregnant anymore, and in the last 3 years I've gained a little experience about how to train someone to properly use a toilet.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
At The Corporation where I work now, the courtesy flush is made more complicated by the fact that we have robotic toilets that sense when they believe you are done and helpfully flush themselves. If, after you are dressed and ready to exit, you notice that a courtesy flush is needed, you have to get creative as you try to convince the toilet that it needs to try again. The best way I have found is to sit back down (fully dressed is fine), count to 10 (if you stand up again too fast the toilet thinks you are kidding and ignores you) and then exit the stall. After that, you stand passively in front of the cyber sink and let it decide when to turn the water on for you.
One gets used to being passive about this stuff, and robotic lavatories make people lazy about the things our mothers thought were in ingrained in us by the age of 6. I always remember to flush (as many times as it takes, thank you), but I have on occasion since I came to work here stood in front of a sink in a public restroom waiting for the water to turn on for me. Only after a few moments do I realize that the sink I am standing before expects me to lift the nozzle to initiate the handwashing. I'm sure that other people who see me leave the ladies room thinking, "Wow, there's something you don't see everyday – a moron who doesn't even know how to turn on a faucet."
At my last job, we had a mystery woman who, in the words of my friend The Cajun Queen, made a habit of "befouling" the women's restroom on an almost daily basis. I found it irritating, but The Queen found it infuriating to the point that if she had found out who it was, she would have done this person physical harm.
It all began a few months after we moved into our new office. At first, the Cajun Queen and I were the only women on our floor, as most of the suites around us were unoccupied. We liked this, because it was like having a restroom all our own. Then we discovered that women were coming from other floors to use the 3 stalls we thought of as our own, either because their floor's restroom was full, or because they weren't feeling well and didn't want their coworkers to know.
The Queen walked into the office one day with her face crinkled in disgust.
"Some lady's in the first stall frautching," she said, "It's gross. I guess she doesn't feel good. I wouldn't go in there for awhile if I were you."
I had never heard the term frautching before, and I'm guessing about how to spell it. I don't know if this is a word that The Queen made up, or if it's a Cajun term to describe what you do the night after you eat at a restaurant where food was not refrigerated properly. The Queen did not approve of frautching in a public restroom. If you were sick enough to frautch, she believed that you needed to stay home and do it on your own toilet.
Then we started noticing that every day, the first of the three stalls was badly constantly in need of a courtesy flush. "Somebody left their sea monkeys swimming in the toilet!" the Queen exclaimed in horror. Sea monkeys became permanent residents in our restroom, too. If the situation was desperate, I sometimes stood in the door and reached across the bowl with my leg to flush it using my foot. I can't really explain why, but the idea of reaching across with my arm was too awful, as if the contents of the toilet might jump out of the water and attack me.
When I was pregnant, I began to spend a lot of time in the restroom, because the weight of my growing son over my bladder meant that it couldn't comfortably hold more that a few tablespoons at a time. Since I was also very sensitive to smells at this time, I began to hate the Sea Monkey Lady as much as The Queen hated her. One day, I came very close to discovering her identity. I never saw her face, but I know that she had thick ankles and a propensity for ugly, square-toed practical shoes. When I walked into the restroom that day she grew quite and still, as if she were in there doing nothing at all, just sitting and relaxing. No noises came from the stall. She did not breath, she did not shuffle her feet. But I knew she was the one. She was in The Sea Monkey stall, for starters, and even if I couldn't see what was in the toilet, the evidence hung in the air I was breathing.
I made a filter out of toilet paper to put over my nose and camped out for a bit in my own stall, and still she did not move. When I couldn't linger any more, I got out and washed my hands a couple of times to make sure they were really, really clean. Still, no sign of life from the Sea Monkey stall. I went outside and stood there for awhile, hoping to catch her coming out of the door. She didn't. When I got back to my desk, the Queen was still at lunch. She walked in a few minutes later, and I told her that The Befouler was on our floor. The Queen's nostrils flared and her eyes grew wide, and she turned to run to the ladies room and hopefully confront her nemesis. As best I could, as pregnant as I was, I ran after her. We were too late, though. The Befouler was gone, and all that was left were her sea monkey spawn.
The Cajun Queen let out a string of epithets.
"Next time, we'll get her," I said, "I'm in here a lot these days, so it's only a matter of time. Look, I want her as bad as you do. If my baby comes out deformed, it'll be because I had to breathe this toxic air every day."
"You shouldn't have to," the Queen fumed, "None of us should, but especially not you in your condition."
"We'll get her," I said.
But we never did. Notes on the door and complaints to the management did no good. Somewhere in this large city I work in, the Befouler, a.k.a. the Sea Monkey Lady, is still at large. If you ever have the bad luck to walk into a restroom stall that she had been in, you'll know her by her sea monkey spawn. The only thing that matters to me, though, is that she no longer works in the same building I do, and she'd better hope she never does again. I'm not pregnant anymore, and in the last 3 years I've gained a little experience about how to train someone to properly use a toilet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 09:26 pm (UTC)On some of those automatic toilets...they have a button you can push too.
I alway use my foot to flush other people's messes...if I ABSOLUTELY don't have a choice. ICK!!!
People like that should have to LIVE with that mess in their own homes and not infect the rest of the world.
And to deal with it whilst pregnant? I'd thrown up multiple times...
*HUGS*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 04:12 pm (UTC)The pregnancy thing did make it worse. It's why I kept trying to catch her: I wanted to see the face of the person I hated so much.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 05:30 am (UTC)Hahaha, ew.
That's my impression of myself as I was reading this.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 12:01 am (UTC)I believe in flushing while one is in the act, especially when you produce something as toxic as this woman. We called her Dragon Lady for more than one reason.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 02:56 pm (UTC)People like that are even worse than elevator farters, and I hate elevator farters.
I used to keep books of matches at my desk, and wouldn't go into the ladies room without one. One watch does a wonderful job of burning off all that methane in the air. o_O
no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 07:52 pm (UTC)Besides, I think men are merely annoyed by this sort of thing. Women get disgusted beyond belief, and it makes us turn mean.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 11:26 pm (UTC)Weeelll...I think that it MIGHT. Don't they say that when you flush, germs are sent into the air for whatever specific distance? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere once that that's why it's important to keep your toothbrushes as far from the toilet as possible, because germs from the toilet can be sent into the air and land on the brushes...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-08 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 05:45 pm (UTC)as for the automatic toilets, i never knew how people didnt know that there is a button, usually hidden, but still present, on the auto toilets that you can push to make the toilet flush without having to do the hokey pokey on and off the seat.... *sigh*..
at one point, i believe there was a group of women on our floor that were so disgusted by things much of the nature you described above that people put signs in the stalls reminding women to flush when done, and even pitched in to purchase air freshener spray for the bathroom
no subject
Date: 2008-03-11 05:54 pm (UTC)But now I'm probably going to gain weight, because doing the Hokey Pokey in the Lady's room was a major source of exercise for me.
Since this button is a hidden thing, how is one supposed to know it's there if no one tells you? Though it does make sense for the cleaning crew, since they have to take care of the courtesy flushes that lazy people do not do for themselves. Come to think of it, I've never caught the cleaning crew doing the Hokey Pokey in the Lady's room, which should have been my clue that such a button existed...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-11 06:25 pm (UTC)and FLUUUUUUUUUUSH.... it did :).... some have them so tiny and not even bigger than the tip of your finger, and others are larger and very much more pronounced.... i have yet to see a toilet automatic flusher with NO buton, however, if they could have made one of those fail safe things on the damn faucets, we'd be set!