The Great Computer Exodus (a.k.a. "Resolutions Bent")

The computers were lousy with patrons upon my arrival today. Not packed completely full, but with only a couple stations to spare. Soon, I knew, these two would fill and then I'd have to figure out who was first in line to be kicked off. I consulted our sign in sheet in advance to see. We'd already filled one sheet and moved to a new one, but there were a few as yet unhighlighted lines at the bottom of the first indicating patrons still in-house. I noted the top most one, then saw that waaaay at the top of the sheet was the signature of Mr. W. Perfect, who had been on since shortly after we opened this morning. Dadgummit.

Soon after this, I decided to do my usual mid-afternoon inspection of the men's room. Everything seemed okay on first glance, but while inspecting the stall for toilet paper, I happened to spy something within the toilet that brought my blood pressure up and alerted me to yet another visit by the Copycat Shitter. So as not to entirely break my New Year's resolution, I will not describe what I saw. However, the conversation I had with Mrs. B as I went to retrieve our cleaning kit (which is complete with Clorox Cleanup, rubber gloves and a stout bristled toilet brush) went as follows:

ME-- Y'know, we have a regular male patron here who really needs to look into eating more cheese, cause his current diet of fiber and cement is pissing me off.

MRS. B-- Eww.

ME-- It's been every day this week with this guy!

And now that I think about it, most of the recent Copycat Shitter incidents have occurred on days when Mr. Perfect has spent a great deal of time with us. Hmmmmmm.

Of course, after that crisis had been scoured away and I was about to exit the restroom, I spotted another potentially disturbing sight within the restroom which caused me to return to the staff workroom for a point of inquiry.

ME-- Please tell me that one of us has already been in the men's bathroom and poured a bunch of water in front of the urinal in preparation for cleaning the floor.

MRS. B-- Uh... not that I'm aware of.

Yes, indeedy, it was a standing urine situation, no doubt caused by one of the many clients from the local Unobstructed Doors group who had been in during the morning. And let me add that this is not the first time I've had to have that particular conversation over that exact subject.

Naturally, before I could return to the restroom, armed with a mop bucket and some Comet, some other guy had come in to have a wee and was standing in the very substance I was hoping to clean up. I had to return to the circ desk to consult with Mrs. B and Ms. D.

ME-- Do we still have our "Restroom Closed" sign?

MS. D-- I think so.

ME-- What about our "Stop pissing on the goddam floor" sign?

MS. D-- Uh, I could make you one.

When I next exited the restroom, I was astounded by an even more astounding sight than those I had just witnessed within. We had only two patrons on computers, all on one side of the computer station. Glory be, at nigh onto 2 o'clock on a weekday during Spring Break, even! Such an event is unheard of.

Mrs. C asked me to stick around the circ desk while she and Mrs. B and Ms. D went to set up our multi-purpose room. They'd barely been gone for five minutes when both computer users gave up the ghost and departed, leaving nary a single computer patron in house, but for the wifi crowd. This I saw as my golden opportunity to clean the hell out of the computer stations on a real indepth basis and not just a cursory wipe down. The phone then began to ring and some book-reading patrons arrived shortly thereafter, so nearly five minutes passed before I could even seek out the Pledge multi-surface and the Clorox Wipes. Just as I was about to head that way, a college-aged female walked in, glanced at the computer sign in sheet then glanced at the desolate row of computers, then up at me.

CAF-- Is there something wrong with the computers?

ME-- Nope.

CAF-- (Pause) But... but they're never empty.

ME-- I know. Astounding, isn't it?

A minute or so passed and my fellow employees returned.

ME-- You guys missed out. A minute ago, the computers were completely empty.

(We all stare at the College Aged Female, who looks back at us guiltily)

CAF-- I'm sorry.

And now, we return to our regularly scheduled program.

So what have the "bad" patrons been up to since I took two weeks off from crapping on them quite so much?

Oh, the usual...

• We still have the usual urinal non-flushers to deal with, who in recent weeks have taken to leaving sloppy drippage on both the front lip of the urinal edge as well as the floor beneath. Now they've stepped up their game and are somehow managing to get urine on TOP of the urinal itself, where it congeals in the hard to clean trench made by the sealant. Son-of-a-bitch, you'd think we'd had a pack of dogs in here marking their territory! I've now been a bit more observant when I visit public restrooms in other buildings and I must say I don't notice near the amount of excess spillage in them that I see on a daily basis at the "liberry." Engage in Intercourse with a small water-fowl, I hate `em!


• In more excretory news, we seem to have a new Serial Shitter—a Copycat Shitter, if you will. We know it's not the original Serial Shitter for none of us have seen him in for months. However, just like his namesake, the Copycat Shitter has left his calling card splattered all over the interior sides of our men's toilet and made, from the evidence, only a cursory effort to flush. This Copycat Shitter may in fact be related to our next mystery rogue...


• Some asshat has been frequently rendering our men's restroom a gassy no-man's land through the sheer power of his fecal fumes. I know, I know, this has been a regular complaint here about a LOT of different patrons over the years, but this is one guy with, presumably, one ass and the ability to completely void the warranty of any given room. We don't know who it is yet, but he has to be a regular patron, since it is occurring quite regularly. The stench is horrifying and lingering and defies our efforts to dispel it. And while I've never been on a CSI-style forensic field trip to know first-hand, to me this guy's product smells exactly like a bog corpse. And due to some damn genius having hid all the aerosol freshener, I had to combat this horror with a tiny bottle of pump-spray air-freshener and a crucifix. For a bit, I thought the responsible party might be Sunday Bob, who did return on a recent Friday and caused all hope to be abandoned by anyone entering the restroom after his departure. However, he's not been in regularly enough to be the culprit and has fumes of a different... um... flavor, I guess. We have now bought numerous cans of aerosol air-freshener, each a different scent and different brand because we know from experience with the likes of Mr. Stanky that this level of stench will wear out a given scent in no time flat.


• The Coot has now taken to shaving in the men's room, which seems the next logical step in his campaign to make the "liberry" his home. This might have gone entirely unnoticed by the staff, except for the fact that, just as he leaves piles of books in his wake throughout the "liberry," he also leaves wads of shaving cream, stray whiskers and soap scum in the sink and seemingly makes no effort to clean up after himself at all. I personally suspect he may be the culprit behind at least two of the above three paragraphs.


• While hauling boxes down to our lower-level storage area (or as we like to call it "the wine cellar), Ms. D noticed there was a light coming from beneath the unusually closed door of our story hour room. Opening it to investigate, she found two teenagers, a guy and a girl. They were both clothed, though the girl was just putting on her coat. Immediately they adopted what she described as incredibly guilty expressions. Before she could ask them what they were doing in an otherwise unpopulated area of the building that we prefer patrons stay the hell out of, they dashed out the lower level back door and were gone. None of the staff had seen anyone go downstairs in the first place, so we have no idea how long they'd been down there and, lacking any infa-red Woods lamps, can only guess what they'd been up to.