Tuesday 26 February 2008

The toilet

Toilets may play a prominent role on these pages. Many of my adventures revolve around toilets, just as the toilet revolves around me during my more troublesome moments.

The toilet at work is broken. We were informed of this by a poorly rendered sign stating 'out of order'. The sign failed to impress me. It was scrawled in blue biro - hardly a suitable choice for penning a warning announcement. I would have gone for felt tip. Possibly blood red with underlining and some skulls. It made the toilet appear not really that broken at all - just a bit done in, some chipping and mild stains but nothing life threatening.

I poked my head around the door. All seemed quiet and safe. No water on the floor, no excrement smeared walls, no broken porcelain or spurting pipes. It appeared as it was. An empty toilet.

Now I faced a predicament. Did I use the broken toilet for the purpose it was created for and fly in the face of the sign or did I take the walk of shame, through the office to the non-broken toilet on the other side of the building? My nerve failed me. I did the latter.

So I was surprised to see, around an hour later, men in the garb best served for chemical warfare or extreme alien vivisection appear beside the toilet. Face-masks, jump-suits, vulcanised gloves. The whole shebang. I'm positive I heard, though the muffled through a mask, the word 'asbestos'.

It seemed a little too late to suddenly send in forces dressed in protective gear when I have been happily piddling unprotected for the best part of a year. I think I must have misheard. Maybe he said. 'Asbo Tetris' which seems an unlikely thing for a man to say, but the tail-end of conversations can always throw up some surprises. Or talking about someone called 'Shaz Lescott'. Garbled through some mouth-wear - its a possibility.

Whatever their purpose, it failed. The sign was still on the door once their visit was over. Its shabbiness now possessed a far more sinister quality.

3 comments:

Ed Fifteen said...

Things are afoot. Perhaps you are already dead? It's the first thing that crossed my mind - 'biro' was the trigger word. Did the men grind matchsticks into the ground? Did you find that when you moved, you seemed to sail forward, free from gravity? Did a drilling sound repeatedly interrupt your thoughts and block your sense of smell with a hot, acrid flash? Some and see me, we'll make things better. In the darkness.

scaredbymyownarm said...

Yep - thats it - we were in the same block.

Ed Fifteen said...

Some says see me some. If I could retype all spelling mistakes, I would still believe in dead people.

The block runs all the way down to the hell basement where you can park your car if you're one of the tea ladies. From hell.