The Whitworthian

Issue date: 11/13/07

I was fired from my very first job for streaking.

More on that in a moment. But first: A vague, meandering introduction.

Growing up, we all had our dream jobs. Some wanted to be veterinarians who were space firefighters on the weekends. If you were ever a middle school girl you inevitably went through a stage where you - and all your friends - wanted to be marine biologists. Others dreamed of being president of the United States, believing the lie that they could be president if they just believed in themselves and studied hard enough for the spelling test. (Kids are so cute when they're incredibly naive.)

Personally, I always told those around me that my final goal, my one purpose, my occupational fantasy, was to be a janitor.

Naturally, I was joking. I do that on occasion. But the fates, being frumpy evil shrews, never quite "got" my sense of humor.

Poetic irony plunged me into the murky waters of Janitordom. Then it pulled me out again and plunged me in again a few more times, because it had clogged.

I was a "custodial technician" for the Sir Arthur Snootington Country Club.

My boss gave me a number of difficult tasks: "Walters! Clean all the dirt out of the sand trap!" "Walters! Scrub the 'no minorities allowed' sign!" "Walters! Grab some brass cleaner and polish that man's trophy wife!"

A janitor's conundrum is that "clean" is a relative term.

For the average college guy, cleaning a room means moving all the moldy pizza boxes to one side of the room.

Occasionally, - planning for a very special visitor - he'll go as far as shoving his half-eaten pieces of french toast under a pile of Mountain Dew cans. He then duct-tapes open the nozzles of a few dozen cans of Febreeze, toes his pile of dirty clothes into the shape of a heart, and prepares for a romantic evening.

Janitor bosses have a markedly different standard.

Their eyes automatically hone in on the smallest speck of dust, track it, and then swoop in to sweep it up with a white glove. "What's this!?" He says, tauntingly displaying the now-dirty glove to you before the crowd of jeering onlookers, "Could this be… uncleanliness?!"

My janitor boss would not only be able to see the speck of dust on the clover in "Horton Hears a Who," he'd be able to see the individual Whos, and would chide them for having dirty floors.

Inevitably, there were times he'd point to stains or spots that I was absolutely sure didn't, technically, exist.

"Can't you see it!?" he'd say incredulously, gesturing toward a sparkling snow-white wall.

"Uh… see what?" I'd say.

"The blood! The gallons and gallons of blood smeared on this wall!" he'd flail angrily against the wall with steel wool and a tattered washrag. "OUT DAMN SPOT!"

"Nope," I'd say, "Don't see it."

That's not to say I didn't learn anything. After all, I spent more time on my knees staring into a toilet bowl than a Gonzaga student on St. Paddy's day. I was bound to gain a new perspective, if only from the Clorox fumes. Each task gave me new insights.

Vacuuming: If you hear the sound of a can opener shoved down a garbage disposal, smell an odor like a sulfur fire at the tire factory, and taste billowing clouds of dust, the vacuum is going to take a smoke break.

It may be tempting to try to push it through its adversity, thinking it will build the vacuum's character, but this will only make it angrier.

Typically, only half of vacuuming time is spent vacuuming. The other half is spent doing vacuum surgery, opening up its innards and removing foreign objects it has stupidly swallowed. It's like a treasure hunt. There's a penny! There's a Troll doll! There's a massive quantity of human hair! There's a spool of barbed wire! There's a very confused and dusty Amelia Earhart!

Bathrooms: Now, I'm familiar with male public restrooms. I've been there so many times I'm almost willing to pee in them. But the women's restroom was a forbidden land shrouded in menace and mystery.

We males got most of our information from unfounded rumors and hazy speculation.

"I hear the walls are paneled in mahogany, there's a Da Vinci fresco on the ceiling, gold leaf toilet paper, and instead of cold porcelain toilets they have couch toilets and bean bag chair toilets."

"I hear the rooms are garnished with some magical substance called 'potpourri.' I think it's made out of lilacs and unicorn guts."

"I hear that, instead of a condom machine, they have a pizzeria."

But the truth is far more dismal. Women's bathrooms are, on the Icktor scale, 10 times ickier than the guys. While women's bathrooms may not have urine on the ceiling tiles or the occasional poop in the urinal, what they do have is far, far worse.

Whitworthian style guidelines prohibit me from mentioning such obscene items by name, so I'll euphemize them. Women's bathrooms often contain the T-word. Little metallic containers absolutely brimming with T-words. Good janitors always carry seven pairs of gloves.

Windows: Most of the time you don't really notice windows, especially if you're a bird. But windows are the most difficult substance to clean on the planet.

The squeegee requires finesse. It's an elegant tool for a cleaner, more civilized age. Press the squeegee too lightly against the glass and have more smears than a presidential campaign. Press too hard and you'll leave shards of broken glass all over the floor, meaning you have to sweep as well.

I'd squeegee a window 12 times and then proudly show it to my boss.

As he furrowed his brow, a million streaks, of all shapes and sizes, appeared on the window.

And that's how I got fired for streaking.

As to the time I got fired for running through downtown Spokane wearing only a Speedo (on my head)? That's one story I'll never tell.

At least, not until the statute of limitations runs out.

Daniel Walters is the opinions editor and a senior majoring in communications and history. Contact him at daniel.walters@whitworthian.com.

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