Who do I still think I am??

This one's about poop, the view, and reincarnation.

30DBC PROMPT: "The most disgusting moment/incident/day in your life."

What's up y'all? I have to say, out of all the prompts I've ever been a part of in the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , this one hands down has the potential to be the most disturbing of them all...and I've been through a bunch of these competitions. I mean that on the whole of all the competitors; I'm not basing my opinion on how I think this particular entry is gonna turn out.

See, I've never had kids, nor have I ever had to deal with an incontinent family member, so my pool of disgusting incidents from which I could draw from is severely limited. And while I'm certain I've had my fair share of unsightly experiences, it's safe to assume I've been repressing those memories from the moment the cleanup was complete. The times I can recall though, as gross as they might be, probably don't qualify as "most disgusting" (but then again, one man's ceiling is another man's floor).

I've inadvertently peed on a coworker once who happened to be wearing shorts (we were barhopping downtown several years ago, and I stopped in an alley to do my thang...he was following me, didn't realize what I was doing, and walked right through the stream). There was that night after bowling that I got so hammered I threw up on the bar (and then had the audacity to attempt ordering another beer). Getting caught in the mosh pit the first time I saw Pearl Jam led to me being covered, head to toe, in dirt (it was also up my nose, my teeth were coated, and there was a decent amount of pit dust in my butt crack). But there's a common denominator to all of these situations...they happened when I was around people I knew and was comfortable with, and chances are they've gone through similar unfortunate circumstances.

Once you break out of the social circle and into the general population though, all of those moments of shame are thoroughly disgusting. It's bad enough sometimes, having worked in retail for so long, that you have to touch people and you don't know where they've been. I've handled money that came out of a sweaty white trash scumbag mom's bra, and sold beer to the old drunk that lived around the corner who came in twice a day for a 12-pack of Milwaukee's Best with a ring of piss staining his jeans. There are certain things you do because you're on the clock and there's no quick way out...and while there are laws in place to protect cashiers in specific situations, all the corporate office really cares about is if the money made it into the till or not. Example: the old guy who pissed his pants wanting to buy more beer. Sure, we could've denied him because he was "potentially intoxicated", but all he has to do is complain to corporate that he was mistreated, and they'll reprimand the store while firing off a $25 gift card for hurting this poor sot's feelings...true story. But I digress.

The most disgusting thing to me, and you take this chance every day that you work in a store with a public restroom, is a stranger's vomit or shit. I draw the line there. I can handle my own, and I can be sympathetic enough to deal with a sick friend...but fuck that. I refuse to clean up someone else's mess. Look, I know accidents can happen, and it's embarrassing no doubt to the person it happened to, but please don't try to defend this to me with statements like "Well, they couldn't hold it" or "it happens so fast" because frankly, I don't want to hear it.

And the worst part of it is when people miss the toilet. No, hold up- I take that back. It's the a-holes who manage to get poop on the walls, the door of the stall, the top of the toilet, the sink, and anywhere but the toilet. How does that even happen? Never mind; I don't wanna know. Or the dude who shits his drawers and leaves his soiled boxers crumpled in a fecal ball on the floor next to the garbage can...that's attractive. I've seen this way too many times...it's real. Hell, at the Walgreens I used to work at we technically didn't have a public restroom...it was for employees only and it was locked. But that changed in one week when we had a run (no pun intended) of senior citizens crapping their pants in or around the pharmacy waiting area. Sure, in theory you'd think the "old guy who crapped his pants" story would come up once in a blue moon, but not in places I've worked. We'd been lucky at times to go a month or two without someone blowing up the john or fingerpainting with poop. And it's never a simple little turd laying across the seat, but a mural made of three days' worth of Taco Tuesdays. Remember those old game shows where you'd step into a booth that would blow money around, and you won all the cash you could grab in a certain amount of time? Picture that, but swap out the bills for semi-soft doo-doo butter. When someone's ass goes wrong, there's no middle ground...it's extreme, and it's everywhere.

The part I really don't get though is this: why are most public restrooms you go to in stores, restaurants and malls colored in a mostly white, cream, or yellow decor? You know, hues that really make the dookie stand out? It serves no purpose, having hospital-white walls in facilities that the average consumer doesn't have to clean. Makes no sense to me. You wouldn't put down white floor mats in a car, and you know those are gonna take a lot of abuse, so why would you build something that services thousands more people,with potentially filthier problems, and do it up nice and bright and shiny? At least in bathrooms with warm, earthy tones, it's not blatantly obvious that someone tried using the wall to wipe his ass while he was still in the process of completing the transaction.

Y'all know that I'm pretty much a live-and-let-live type of brotha, but this is one troubling pattern of behavior that needs to stop, like, yesterday. You'll notice I never attached a specific date or time frame to this entry...every day you have to clean up after someone's disastrous bathroom bombing is automatically the worst, most disgusting day of your life.

BCF PROMPT: "Look out a window and write a story or poem about what you see."

I don't have a great view from my window...I live about halfway back on the second floor of my building, which gives me a great view of the diner next door's employee parking lot. My view of the intersection is partially obscured by the large student housing on the other side of the diner, though I can see the giant clock on the building kitty-corner from me. I can't see the CVS across the street, but I can see the sign for Macho Burger, which kinda sounds like a cool name for a chain of restaurants (and it even has a funny mustache logo), but the building is kinda dumpy and they're hardly ever open...I can see their parking lot and there are never any cars there; not even employees. I'm kinda glad I don't like burgers much because I'd really hate to be in the mood for one bad enough to want to go there, only to find that they're open 11am-9pm Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and that's it.

And here's why that's frustrating to me. I can't plan meals, because I'll never know what I'm in the mood for until I'm hungry. I'm very picky like that. Today was a rare day for me in that I was off work, had no other appointments or places to be, and sorta felt like leaving the house. I knew I should probably grocery shop, and I figured maybe doing that would stimulate the appetite I haven't had since last week. I got dressed, made my way to the bus stop, got sassed by a crippled old lady who thought I was rushing her to take a seat (I wasn't, I was just mentally preoccupied), and set out thinking I might have a half of a turkey sub, or maybe a wrap. But it didn't happen. Halfway there, traffic on Rte. 281 was backed up more than normal, and signals were out. We got to the grocery store, and it turns out there was no power in the surrounding areas. The store itself was pitch black (and running on limited generators, I assume)...so basically I wasted a trip out for nothing. I could've waited around the store to see if the electricity would come back on in a reasonable amount of time, but without a guarantee I can't just sit around hopin'. I stayed on the bus, went back home, and stopped at CVS for some snacky stuff. Whatever...at least I kinda managed to get some sort of food-like substances in my system (if a Slim Jim, some Club crackers with spray cheese, and pistachios count as food-like).

I wish I had something more exciting to add, but my neighborhood's kinda boring from my physical view. I can't even see the anti-war hippies and burnouts that congregate every Saturday morning at the corner, waving their "Honk For Peace!" and "Bring The Troops Home" signs. I usually forget about them until it's too late, and as I'm laying in bed I'm wondering why I keep hearing so many car horns blasting. I swear they've been there since Vietnam, and I've only lived here for a year and a half.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

I really didn't feel like looking up a song about defecation, so you get this instead.

"Well, we've got the land but they've got the view...
If it takes shit to make bliss then I feel pretty blissfully."
Lyrics.  

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

Sure, I guess so. Obviously we don't come back as the same thing, and maybe we don't come back in any kind of living form, but I guess it could be possible that we revisit this planet as an object that's inanimate toward humans.

Wow. I don't have a moment like this very often, but as I was saying that sentence above to myself while typing it, I just realized how absolutely ridiculous it sounds. And normally I'd just delete it and try again, but I've got nothin' else goin' on for this discussion. You can't be dead and come back as a dead version of you, because you'd be a ghost and I really don't think there's such a thing (and if you do, please don't tell me about it...you've got a blog; use it , and if you don't have a blog, go get yourself one and talk it up 'til your heart's content over there). And you don't die and come back as yourself, because death's a finite thing. So maybe I'm not down with reincarnation after all. I mean, no one's really had to have this conversation   with anyone before, right?

TEASER ALERT!! I literally took a thirty second break from bangin' this entry out, and stumbled across this:

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Coming August 1st, 2014.

50: Guess who turns the big 5-0 today? The one and only Courtney Love! And if you ever needed proof that she's batshit crazy (or already know and want a reminder), there's this list of 50 Quotes About Courtney Love  . My favorite, from Russell Simmons: "I think she is a sweet girl. It's probably exciting to be a crackhead."

You know I love it when my hometown gets some Buffalove from national media...and today HuffPo   ran a great article featuring 20 reasons to visit Buffalo. From food to cultural attractions and architecture, it's really a cool ass city.

And from one of my favorite sites, Gawker: The GOP is trying to reach out to young voters by offering ".gop" domain names   that anyone can purchase...of course, it's already gone hilariously wrong. I suggest, if you appreciate that kind of humor, you head over to the Tumblr page   now dedicated to the, ahem, cause, where there's more chicanery of the sort happening.

I think I've about said all I need to say this evening, so I'm gonna poke around the scene here on WDC for a little bit before I try to capitalize on the full, uninterrupted night of sleep I had last night- two in a row is a streak- and do that work thing all day at Capco tomorrow. Peace, it feels pretty soft, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!