Posted by John:
So I spent the whole of last week in Shitstain, West Virginia doing a jobsite observation at a large hospital project that has been under construction there for the past two years. I don’t want to fall into the stereotypical West Virginia jokes because I don’t think it’s that bad of a state. It’s quite scenic and I know several West Virginians and they’re all fine, upstanding people. Granted, they all moved away from West Virginia as soon as they could, but that’s neither here nor there. This particular place I was visiting wasn’t necessarily a destination I’d recommend, but it wasn’t terrible per se. If I were to describe the place in a few words I would say that if God exists he’s definitely forgotten about this particular town. As an example, the woman working the counter at the hotel had the most tragic haircut I’d ever seen. In fact, it was four haircuts in one and all were outdated by at least two decades. She had the old school, fluffy bangs along with a poodle poof/beehive-thing on top, then a mullet in back with the most glorious perm this side of 1984. I couldn’t stop staring at it but I also couldn’t wrap my head around it. It’s like when Conan used to be on the air he would occasionally do celebrity mash-up photos where he would take two or more celebrity photos and turn them into one singular hybrid monster celebrity. The whole point was to take the celebrity’s worst features without any attempt to actually blend them together to make them look good. That was pretty much what this hairstyle(s) was. I was going to feint admiration and ask where she had her hair done, then I was going to sneak out in the middle of the night and burn that fucking place down for the safety of the rest of humanity.
At any rate, this story isn’t about West Virginia or haircuts. It’s about a horrendous week spent on a construction job site. As I’ve said before, rule number 1 on a job site is, don’t be a douche, so that was my top priority the moment I set foot out there. In fact, my whole strategy was to be like a ninja and encounter the fewest number of people possible. The less people you encounter the less opportunity to do something douchey. Fortunately for me this was an absolutely massive building with seven floors and hundreds and hundreds of rooms, so it wasn’t difficult to strategically avoid contractors anywhere I went. Therefore, all I had to worry about was not leaving any evidence of my presence. Unfortunately, that proved to be easier said than done.
My job was to make sure all the sinks and toilets in the entire facility were operational. I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of sinks and toilets. It was the same shit for 4 straight days: walk in a room, check for hot water at the sink, flush the toilet; walk to the next room, check for hot water, flush the toilet; walk to the next room… Holy shit I wanted to stab myself in the eyeball with a plastic fork, it was so horrible. So on my first day there I wandered into one room, turned the sink on to let it warm up then turned my back to go flush the toilet when I heard the sink cough, sputter, spit, then I turned back just in time to see the water erupt from the faucet, hit the sink bowl, then launch into the air like a goddamn geyser. Apparently there had been a lot of pressure built up in the pipe and by opening the faucet I released all that pressure. I rushed over to shut the sink off but the damage was already done. Water was dripping from the ceilings and walls and puddling up all over the floor. And there I was, my face and shirt soaking wet. So what did I do? Got the hell out of there of course. Then I went to hide in a room somewhere else for 20 minutes to let my shit dry out. Now I’m going to write in my report, “Sink in room 7124 not functioning properly… PS – Mop up floor, walls, and ceiling.”
Plus, do you have any idea how often you have to pee when you’re constantly checking sinks for hot water and flushing toilets? Like every 30 minutes. You might as well walk around with your hand in a goddamn glass of warm water. And the thing was, there was a strict rule on site to not use any of the toilets. A few weeks ago when the plumbing started to get up and running all the construction workers were sneaking off to remote parts of the building to take huge shits wherever they could. You can’t blame them; can you imagine being on a construction site for two years, taking all your shits in a dirty-ass porto-pot after hundreds of other construction workers? The first time you’d see an actual toilet would be like seeing a French prostitute after spending a year out at sea. But the thing was, not all the toilets were operational yet. So these guys were going, dropping huge deuces, and then the fucking toilet wouldn’t flush. This was happening multiple times each day. One of my coworkers was unlucky enough to be on site a few weeks ago and he walked into a room and nearly passed out from the smell. Being the curious critter that he is, he soldiered through the toxic odor to discover the source, which as you can expect was a massive unflushed turd in the toilet bowl. It was so huge and disgusting that he naturally took a picture of it with his phone. He then showed me the picture and I nearly passed out just from the image. Now, a lot of you probably find this pretty appalling, and if you do you likely have two X chromosomes. If you don’t have two X chromosomes you probably have a picture of a huge turd on your cell phone right now. I’m not kidding ladies, ask your significant other right now if he has a picture of a turd on his cell phone and he’ll confirm it. Just don’t ask to see it because dudes don’t take pictures of just any old, average, run of the mill turd. No, it’s likely the most disgusting turd he’s ever come across, human or otherwise. Hence the picture on the cell phone. In fact, I’d venture to say that the guy who thought of putting a camera on a cell phone had one day walked into a stall in a hole-in-the-wall shit bar and unwittingly stumbled upon a massive unflushed turd and thought to himself, “Holy shit! This is the biggest turd I have ever seen! If only I had a camera on my person right now!” In fact, the person that produced said turd was probably like, “Holy shit! This is the biggest turd I have ever produced. I’m going to leave it so I can go get a camera,” because he knew that any guy that stumbled upon that masterpiece after him would never flush it, opting instead to take a picture of it. You think I’m making this all up just to get a rise out of you, but seriously, ask you boyfriend if he has any pictures of turds on his phone right now. Ask him. Personally I have a picture on my phone of the biggest pile of dog shit I have ever seen, which was left in my yard by the neighborhood stray dog nearly 2 years ago.
Now, getting back to the construction site, there was obviously a pretty simple solution to this issue of taking a shit in a toilet then finding out it doesn’t flush – you flush the goddamn toilet before you sit down to make sure it works. If it doesn’t flush, just go on to the next one (In fact, I’m pretty sure this is what Jay-Z’s new song, “On to the Next One” is about). How retarded are these guys? But the other, much larger issue in my opinion was, there wasn’t a single shred of toilet paper in the entire building, obviously because the toilets weren’t fully functional yet and the owner of the building didn’t want to encourage people to take a shit. So what the hell were these guys wiping their asses with? That must be why most construction workers wear sleeveless shirts. The shirts didn’t start out sleeveless, but if you were taking a shit somewhere and suddenly realized you didn’t have anything to wipe your ass, what would you do? Probably sacrifice the sleeves on your shirt. I’d also be willing to bet that most construction workers don’t end the workday with their socks either. At any rate, the issue with the contractors taking shits in non-functional toilets was obviously a pretty big deal, hence the rule that everyone was forbidden from using any of the toilets on site. As you can imagine that was a huge inconvenience to anyone that has to take a piss every 30 minutes. At first I honored the rule and would walk down 7 flights of stairs to the porto-pot, then walk back up 7 flights of stairs. Then 30 minutes later, down 7 flights of stairs, then back up. After doing that a few times I was like, “Screw this shit, I’m not training for a stair walking competition here. I’m using one of these goddamn toilets.” So I found a bathroom in a remote corner, flushed first to make sure it worked, took a leak, then got the hell out of there. Believe me, it was worth the risk.
A while later I had worked my way down to the 6th floor where I saw three plumbing contractors frantically rushing about, “Where is the leak coming from?”
“I don’t know, it’s above the ceiling here somewhere…”
“Wait, it’s coming from a toilet up on the 7th floor!”
“The 7th floor! No one should be using any toilets anywhere! How is it leaking???”
Holy shit if the leak wasn’t coming from the exact toilet I had used not more than 30 minutes earlier! I’m not making this up. You can imagine the panic that gripped my bowels at that moment. Can you imagine what would have happened to me if those contractors had found out I was the one to use that toilet? Dear God, I would have been drawn and quartered then they would have used the sleeves of my severed arms to wipe their asses.
But how did that happen? I was flushing every goddamn toilet that in that entire goddamn building; how in the hell did the one toilet that I actually took a piss in start leaking into the ceiling of the floor below? How??? I have no idea.
So what did I do? Got the hell out of there of course. I went to a remote part of the building and hid in a room for 20 minutes to let things blow over. Now I’m going to write in my report, “Toilet in room 7378 leaking into ceiling of 6th floor… PS – If you find a navy blue sock in the waste pipe downstream of the toilet in room 7274, it’s not mine.”
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