Poo

The defining moment of my career at the Chelsea Theater.

Jason and Lauren are total champs.

I worked Sunday nights as long as I was a projectionist, so about 2 years. Always I came in after Jason worked the matinee, a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. Up the street from the theater is a "retirement community," where hasbeens born with silver spoons up their asses go to whittle away at their final days. This is a boon to the Chelsea and feeds the Sunday grosses like a grown adult sucking at the withered teat of its mother & thriving on life-giving Ensure. Revolting.

One particular afternoon I got a call. For some background, there are regulars at the Chelsea [another time] who appear in an aura of infamy. One man came in frequently on Sundays and has Parkinson's. He was there to see Sideways (I think it was) with his daughter or caretaker or whatever. The first thing they did that day was complain about the lack of handicapped accessible bathrooms at the Varsity (a sister theater). Thing is, they're there. I promise. They're downstairs in plain sight, and I'm sure anyone could have directed them there if they'd only asked. The Varsity is notoriously anti-senior due to parking concerns... lucky bastards. At any rate, the Chelsea employee didn't know what to tell them; maybe they expected something?

The call I received was to inform me that someone had made a mess in the bathroom. To do it a little better justice, dude had the men's bathroom fucking ruined. Like... tubgirl ruined. If you're not familiar with tubgirl, look it up on wikipedia at your own risk. Let's summarize:
1. Both toilets clogged
2. Piles of shit and toilet paper on the floor
3. The cup runneth over
4. Shit tracked back into the theater

So why did we clean it up? I mean, shouldn't we be getting a bio hazard crew together, worrying about hepatitis, putting a mop in that fucker's hand?

Lauren and Jason:
1. Scooped and scraped into the drain in the floor, rendering two dustpans useless.
2. Unclogged the far stall, which had suffered less damage.
3. Bleached the hell out of the floor.
4. Wept openly.

When I got there, I was under the impression that it was under control. The looks on my coworkers' faces were expressive of the sullen solitude common in survivors of apartment complex fires. I stepped in to survey. The mixture of bleach and excrement created a palpable wall of odor, similar to walking outside on a hot day from a grocery store. The feeling of terror was memorable, like the dolly zoom from Vertigo.

There was a line from Desperate Housewives (shut up) that describes it pretty well. "Sometimes things get so bad, all you can do is laugh." There's something of a disconnect, and the part of my brain that registers horror just shut off. So, stuff I did:
1. Unclogged the other toilet
2. Mopped the walls and the side of the toilet
3. Mopped the brown slug-trail into and around the theater
4. Replaced the mop head
5. Prayed for the last time
Seems kind of simple when I put it in numbers like that. Really I don't remember it that well, like I repressed it somehow. Any future psychiatrist who tries to recover that memory is in for a world of pain.