{"id":225,"date":"2010-01-27T22:04:02","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T06:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nothingtoreadhere.com\/?p=225"},"modified":"2010-01-27T22:04:02","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T06:04:02","slug":"grosser-than-gross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Grosser than gross"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bandit\"<\/a>And by “gross,” I wish I only meant 144.\u00a0 Instead, I’m using that adjective to describe an anonymous person’s bathroom habits.\u00a0 I suppose I should add a disclaimer saying that I’m going to talk about some nasty things (in case the title didn’t clue you in), but please bear in mind that reading about this unfortunate occurrence pales in comparison to actually experiencing it.<\/p>\n

I work in a building that has one male and one female bathroom per floor.\u00a0 A little while after I started, the male bathroom (which is the only one I frequent – why, what have you heard?) started to get noticeably messier.\u00a0 This meant more than one’s fair share of willy-nilly urinating, forgotten flushes, and balled-up paper towels thrown on the floor in a corner where apparently people thought a trashcan should be.\u00a0 It’s not a huge bathroom (three urinals and two stalls), so this made a big difference in my use of the facilities.<\/p>\n

After several complaints, two main changes were made.\u00a0 First, a small trashcan was placed in the aforementioned corner.\u00a0 Second, the door’s hardware was changed so as to require a code.\u00a0 Why’s that?\u00a0 Because the prevailing theory on the increased messiness was that people from other floors were coming to ours to relieve themselves.\u00a0 (That’s because we routinely saw people we didn’t recognize leave the bathroom and walk over to the elevator.\u00a0 Those are some crazy detective skills, I know.)<\/p>\n

For a while, everything got better.\u00a0 The new trashcan was being used, and I stopped having to peer into a stall to check for collateral damage before entering to do business of my own.\u00a0 Then it happened.\u00a0 I was standing at the left-most urinal one morning when I noticed something on the wall right in front of me.\u00a0 “Is that…a booger?” I wondered (possibly aloud).\u00a0 Yes, yes it was. I know this because there were two or three more next to it on the wall as well, and they all looked exactly like you would expect.\u00a0 “That’s disgusting!” I thought or said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next several months, The Booger Bandit struck again and again.\u00a0 I’d guess about once every week or two.\u00a0 It’s possible that it happened more often but was taken care of by the cleaning crew that tidies up throughout the day.\u00a0 I don’t know why I’d never brought it up to my co-worker Rob, but I did one day after I was pushed too far.\u00a0 Smeared boogers near my face while I’m dealing with a variety of bathroom smells is one thing, but when they’re also\u00a0tinged with blood, I’m compelled to speak.\u00a0 (Yes, I’m well aware of how gross that is.\u00a0 That disclaimer’s making even more sense now, eh?)\u00a0 \u00a0“Hey Rob,” I said, “Have you ever noticed that someone appears to be wiping boogers right above the urinal?”\u00a0 “Yes!” he said, with the kind of happy relief normally reserved for people realizing that they’re not crazy.\u00a0 (“You hear those whispers too?\u00a0 Thank the lord!”)\u00a0 “What’s wrong with that guy?” I asked.\u00a0 He had no answer, but I kept going: “I guess I can almost understand it happening once.\u00a0 Let’s say you’re peeing, and you have one of those kinda sharp boogers up high in your nostril and you just have to get rid of it.\u00a0 You do, but then you realize that you have nowhere to put it.\u00a0 So there you are, your dick in one hand, and a booger in the other.\u00a0 Forced to make a choice, you smear it on the wall in front of you.\u00a0 Maybe you meant to clean it up but forgot, maybe not.\u00a0 I can buy that happening once based on a poorly-planned nose pick.\u00a0 But the second time, it’s no mistake.\u00a0 And every time after that, well, that’s just fucked up.”\u00a0 He agreed, but seemed a little concerned that I’d put so much thought into it.<\/p>\n

So what can I do?\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think taping a sign that says, “Please don’t smear your sometimes-bloody boogers on this wall” will do anything except possibly encourage copycat Booger Bandits.\u00a0 I don’t know most of the guys who regularly use the bathroom, so I can’t just slyly mention it to everyone I run into while I’m in there.\u00a0 I’m at a loss, and I’d appreciate any suggestions.\u00a0 All I know is that I’m fed up, and this type of behavior snot appropriate for the workplace. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And by “gross,” I wish I only meant 144.\u00a0 Instead, I’m using that adjective to describe an anonymous person’s bathroom habits.\u00a0 I suppose I should add a disclaimer saying that I’m going to talk about some nasty things (in case the title didn’t clue you in), but please bear in mind that reading about this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,41],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bathroom","tag-gross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}