It's the Simple Things

(Post 7)

So, sometimes being a janitor at a dorm full of Freshman sometimes isn't all it's cut out to be... and most don't cut out very much of it. However, there are many many benefits to being a janitor... one of which is the associated Janitorial Zen that can be achieved by select Janitorial Zen Masters. Today I experienced two of those benefits, and I want to tell about them: 1.) There is something sadistically comic about a phenomenon that I as a janitor experience on a nearly daily basis. It usually presents itself in this way: I go to the closet, get out the yellow "closed" sign and set it up in the hallway. I lock the bathroom doors and hook up the hose so I can spray down the showers. Inevitably, before I get a chance to turn the water on I hear a set of sounds that make me as jolly as the Grinch would have been if he'd heard " all the Whos down in Who-ville [...] all cry BOO-HOO!" First the door handle to the left jiggles; then it rattles. Next, the door thumps back and forth on the doorframe. Fists pound the door while someone screams "NOOO!" or "Awe-Man!" or "#$@!" or my favorite, "Not AGAIN!" This is then repeated on the right door. Sometimes I hear one final kick at the door's footplate before I hear frantic running in the direction of the next bathroom. I really start to glow by this time, and my whole day just seems to go much better. Call me cruel, but cruel is as cruel does, or something like that... 2.) You meet interesting people as a janitor - like the guy that dances up the stairwell while his iPod is blasting. Today I met a coworker from one of the other buildings. He's from some Hispanic or Latino country. He makes me feel like I'm living "The Mummy" because he sounds almost exactly like Benny - you know, the guy who says "What friend? You are my only friend." and "It is better to be on the Devil's left hand than in his path." So anyhow... it's the little things that make life good.

-Schlange