It Could Always Be Worse… But We’re Not Sure How

I was the night janitor and minor stocker for a health food store at sixteen. I once had to scrub a bathroom that had human waste on the wall, the toilet seat, the back of the toilet, and the floor. It was the only bathroom they had, and it sat for a day before I came in. With a whole aisle of gut-cleansing items and supplements being sold there, I wasn’t surprised. I made a concoction with all the natural cleaners they had and used it to spray the bathroom down. It stripped the wax from the floor.

I did, however, refuse to clean up an office they trashed as a welcome-back joke on someone. I closed the door and refused because it was done purposely by the staff. There were cigarette ashes, empty beer cans, and empty bottles everywhere, and there were pictures of all the employees’ butts squashed on a copier taped to the walls. Again, I was sixteen.

Now, those are both funny stories I tell my teens when they don’t like having to do something.