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Capital of Nasty Vol. 04 Issue 01
Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume IV, Issue 1, AD MCMXCVIX
Monday, January 11th, 1999
ISSN 1482-0471
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"Y2... what?... Hey, what can I say? I'm an AOL user."
- IMPROV'S take on the Y2K bug
-------------------------------------------
I guess CoN was the only e-mail some people got, so they HAD to read
it. You know, like smoking the filter of your last cigarette when
7/11 is closed.
-------------------------------------------
1. Editorial
2. Y1.999K Problems
3. Regular customers
4. How to avoid jury duty
5. Malls
-------------------------------------------
This week's Golden Testicle award:
-------------------------------------------
1. Editorial
by CoN Staff
alt.con.questionnaire.results
The results stand as such:
Out of 750 readers, 741 users do not read CoN.
Nine users replied to issue III.22.
Of those nine, four users read CoN but missed the questionnaire.
Of the remaining five, four read it through e-mail (1 through Pine, 3
through Eudora), while one with the eyes in his head. One user
occasionally prints out his issues to read them on the subway/bus.
They all also find CoN humorous, entertaining and that it has a
feeling of true stories of life they can all relate to. A few find
some articles a great bore, while other articles a great read.
In future issues of CoN they expect:
"redheads and ways to keep alive with the least effort, while never
losing that tingly feeling in my pants",
"Why Canadians hate or are better than Americans issue",
what we already got,
one of the articles that appears here (number 4 to be precise),
and lastly "LOTSA PORN!".
Of the four e-mails sent in reply to CoN, three deserve a mention.
The first is from BloSSoMEdr, an AOL user no less:
>> alt.ezines.
>
> Could you send me a link to alt.ezines? Thankies! :D
news:alt.ezines
The second e-mail is from J. Bell, who writes:
> Doesn't "bi-weekly" mean twice a week? Correct me if I'm wrong...
> it's late here, and I may not be in a sound state of mind. But,
> I'm pretty sure that you're looking for "bi-monthly." Right?
> Every other week, not two times a week? Anyhow, I thought I
> might as well drop in a line about that.
> Being the good citizen that I am. (yeah, blow that one out
> your ass while your at it :)
According to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary - tenth
edition, the term bi-weekly began to mean "twice a week" in 1832. In
1890 circa, the meaning changed to "every two weeks". However, bi-
weekly can be used, without error, for both, although it is most
commonly used and understood for serial publications, which are sent
once every two weeks.
The third e-mail is from Jones Davis, in regards to the Y2K bug:
> I stumbled upon your e-zine by mistake, subscribed to it,
> and now it seems to me that C.o.N. is a pretty open-minded
> publication (contrary to the popular belief of e-zines being
> higly censored publications).
>
> You mentioned in Issue 22 that Issue 23 will deal with the
> Y2K bug. Here is what I think will happen on January 1st, 2000,
> 12:00:00 AM Local Time. These are my own estimated figures:
>
> 1. 30% of the North American companies will not be y2k compliant.
>
> a) 90% of these companies will invest large amounts of money
> to buy updated versions of the software that they are using.
> This includes user licenses for those programs.
>
> b) 10% of the companies which use custom-designed software will
> hire highly-paid programmers, who will do the updating job
> for the next 3-12 months (by 2001 these companies will have
> their custom software fully updated, meantime they will lose
> money)
>
> 2. 75% of the European companies will not be y2k compliant.
>
> a) 99% of these companies will buy updated (y2k compliant) versions
> of the software they have been using, or they will switch to
> buggy MICROSOFT Y2K compliant software. Basically, this means
> they will lose their data at one point anyways.
>
> i) 75% of these companies will afford this software with no
> problems (This is Europe, mind you)
> ii) 25% of these companies will not afford the new software and
> will go out of business.
>
> b) 1% of the European companies will work on updating their
> custom-designed software.
>
> 3. China will, as always, supply the Western Market with pirated
> y2k-compliant software.
>
> 4. 101% of the Japanese companies are already y2k compliant, probably
> since 1979. Basically, the Japanese will/have fixed the problems
> without much hassle or losses.
>
> 5. The rest of the world will buy new software, and very few companies
> will update their old software packages.
>
> 6. Microsoft will start a new hype/scare about y2k and will use this
> strategy to sell new buggy software that will probably emerge around
> September 1999.
>
>
> We hope that our predictions will be close to reality.
> Sincerly,
>
> Jones Davis,
I'll leave you now with this first edition of Volume 4. While I have
to thank Lilith DamHareIs for being, as usual, so amazingly creative,
I have to say that neither me, or anyone else, was able to come up
with anything decent about the Y2K.
We have no clue on what the next issue should be about. If you feel
you have a suggestion or an subject that would make for another issue
of CoN, feel free to e-mail it to CoN Editorial, by hitting reply to
this posting.
Happy New Year. Happy New CoN.
-------------------------------------------
2. Y1.999K Problems
by Lilith DemHareIs
I have a car. This car is older than me. Despite its age, it runs
quite well... until Christmas Day. I guess even cars like to take the
day off in Typical Australian Fashion.
I live in Western Australia. This is a state that is bigger than
Europe, and has the population of Utah. (You have absolutely NO
conception of distances until you've driven around, across, or along
Western Australia.) That means if you want to go anywhere, say, the
pearl fields of Broome, or the spendid caves of Margaret River, you've
got to spend many hours, or even days, driving to get there. And the
only souls you'll see are the occasional kangaroo, emu, or wombat.
Once in a while, someone will pass you in a vehicle, in about the same
condition as yours. Be sure to wave hello, as you may not see another
human again for a long while.
The Family Farm was our destination for Christmas. It was only
several hours drive. It would only take us half a day...
Until the nylon cogs on our timing wheel stripped off. (At least,
that's what we found out later.) All we knew at the time was that we
heard a fizzy noise, and the car quit. We pulled over on the side of
the road, pulled our engine apart as much as our Bag of Tricks would
let us, and decided that the alternator wasn't alternating.
Great.
Did I mention we didn't have a Yuppie Phone with us?
We couldn't even send smoke signals, as it's summer Down Under, and we
aren't allowed to light fires in the bush. Well, we could, and would
attract attention Real Fast, and if we survived the raging bushfire,
we'd be fined so much, our first, second and third children would be
forfeit.
And how would we pay our car repair bill then?
As we sat along the side of the road, waiting for someone to drive by,
I did some thinking.
Is this how it will be next year? Say we buy a new-used car next
year? Anything we get is sure to have computer chips in it. And
probably not Y2K compliant. And what if we do remember to take a
Yuppie Phone with us? It won't do us much good if the ten-year-old
satellites they bounce off of suddenly decided that Yuppie Phones
weren't invented in 1900? And for that matter, neither were
satellites.
Luckily for us, it was a short wait until an Aussie Bloke in a Rusty
Holden Ute (pickup truck) came trundling by. "Yer old [Holden]
Kingswood break down, mate?" he said. "Shame. Usually they last
forever." Or at least until 1999. He would know. His vehicle was
about as old as ours, and still going. Well, mostly. His towbar had
been broken off in an accident, and he was unable to give us a tow
into town. Telling his cattle dog Bluey to get in the back, we
squeezed into the cab.
He gave us a ride into town, which just happened to be the closest one
to the Family Farm. We gave the rellies a ring, and they brought out
their Rusty Holden Ute avec towbar, and hauled our broken old car back
to the farm.
Christmas on the Farm. Technology isn't exactly rife. Because there
were so many people there, and it was the heat of summer, all the
cooking happened outside, on an old wood-burning stove. Everyone was
up at the crack of dawn (read: 5 am), and we rode horses, chased
sheep, shot foxes, fixed fences, and did all those things that require
absolutely no computer-chip-based technology whatsoever. We were so
dog-tired, we crashed as soon as the sun set. No time for lights, or
even listening to the radio. (Get serious. You think TV signals make
it out that far?) The whole time, I wondered if this was how life was
going to be next year after the clock ticked over.
We honestly don't know what will happen in three hundred sixty some-
odd days. Will there just be a few hiccups with billing, and maybe a
few hours power outage, or will the Year 2000 spell Armageddon?
Seeing that we were going nowhere until our car was fixed, our rellies
leaned on a few mates, and we spent several days pulling our engine
apart and fixing the problem. All it cost us was the price of new
parts, and several ant bites received under the car while bolting the
sump back on. (I still itch.)
"There you go," said our rellies as we gave our car a successful test
run.
"That should get you home at least. Most likely, it'll run for
another year."
Yeah. At least, until the Year 2000.
-------------------------------------------
Excuse me, ma'am, but have you accepted Mr. Bear as your personal Lord
and Savior?
Beary Krishna, Beary Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Beary Beary. --Ken
-------------------------------------------
3. Regular Customers (Random Reminisces of Gretchen's Gourmet Grille)
by Jason MacIsaac
When I worked in the restaurant business, I used to get what we called
"Regulars." Not "regular" in the sense of going to the bathroom, but
there is a slight excremental theme running through both.
When you think about regulars, you probably think about loveable
Normie from Cheers, waltzing in day after day with a wry joke or
observation. Everybody loves Normie, right? Where I worked, Normie
would have been deliberately fed rancid meat to kill him or put him
off the restaurant forever, whichever came first. As for Cliff
Clavin, nobody would come within thirty feet of him. He'd be bounced
from section to section, and the manager would probably have to end up
serving him.
For the most part, we hated our regular customers. Now, most
restaurant personnel hate all their customers. It's only natural,
because customers are egotistical, cheap morons. Oh, yes we are.
Trust me, I've been one. But regular customers tend to get hated the
most. We had a few good ones because they a) didn't ask for much and
shut up, or b) tipped well. They were rare. Most of them were in the
restaurant because it was the only place in Mississauga that would
serve them. Our managers were mostly gutless who wouldn't kick out
anybody. Our servers, on the other hand, were an ornery lot. You had
to be. If you weren't a complainer, you'd get stuck with three tables
full of teenagers who'd sit there all night, not order much, and by
closing time, wait patiently for the change from a $14.98 tab (with
which they paid for with a five and a ten).
This whole idea that servers hate their customers is probably new to
many people. Explaining why is a whole other deal in itself. But
let's sum it up. No matter how funny you think you are, you're not.
That smile you see on your server face is forced. Any joke you make a
server has heard 10,000 times. I don't care if you're John Cleese
meets David Letterman. You cannot come up with an original joke.
You're not charming, you're obnoxious. We get paid to like you, and
as soon as the meter's not running, we don't like you. Servers are
deeply resentful that what they earn depends on pretending to like
someone.
But regular customers are a whole other matter. You see, with one
customer or group of customers, the standard tricks work. You smile,
you ask the usual questions, tell the usual jokes, the same snappy
patter, blah blah blah. You don't usually have to think of something
new. A regular customer is in too often to use the same ol' BS.
Although you have to change your material, the regular doesn't. He'll
come in with the same anecdotes, talk about sports you have no
interest in. Restaurant work is seen by many of the people who enter
it as a temporary thing. Servers think "I'll be here until I graduate
and I can use my philosophy degree to get a better job" or "I'll be
here until I get that dream job which should be any day now" or "I'll
be here until I'm abducted by aliens and forced to save their
civilization by vigorously copulating with some Venusian Love
God/Goddess at least six times a day." Restaurant work has a tendency
to suck people in, like a vortex. We used to talk about "Lifers,"
people we knew would be working at our restaurant until it closed, at
which point they would find another restaurant job. Those with hope
dreaded becoming a lifer. And for that reason, seeing a regular
customer is a reminder that things haven't changed, and time is
passing. Seeing a regular is an unpleasant reminder to a server that
their world is not moving.
And that's why most servers hate regular customers.
I used to have regulars, including this one old man when I was tending
bar. I supposed it would be impolite to call him senile, since it was
clearly the boozing that drowned all the neurons in his brains and
accounted for his behavior. Let's be fair--he wasn't senile, just a
drunk.
He had no memory capacity. I'm sure he walked in every day to check
out the restaurant he's heard about but never tried before. Once he
asked if we had Kidney Pie. We didn't, so I asked if he'd like to see
a menu so he could pick something else. He picked an omelet to go.
So I gave him his omelet. About an hour later he returned complaining
about my mistake--he'd ordered Kidney Pie. After a bit of discussion
where I filled him in on the "missing time" using hypnotic regression
(often used to interview people who encounter UFOs and extra-
terrestrials), he ordered a beer instead.
He always wore a brown suit, the kind accountants wore in the
seventies. Bad accountants. It may have been tailored from the living
room drapes. Sometimes he would wear a baby blue baseball cap, the hat
stained and faded, but somehow the brim was straight as a homophobe.
It didn't have the curve that a well-loved cap has. I would say it
looked terrible, but the truth is the alternative was worse. His hair
was grey and matted, but thinning. Have you ever seen that spray that
they used to advertise on infomercials? Basically it was spray-paint
for your hair. You used it, and it looked like you had a fuller head
of hair. Actually, it made you look like a dork, but roll with me
here. As bad as that stuff was, whatever this guy was using was
worse. I suspect he might have used a coat of house paint. It
camouflaged his hair loss about as effectively as a sheet of paper
with the words "This is not a tank, it's a tree" affixed to a tank in
the middle of an open field.
Sometimes his wife would come in, and she could knock it back too.
Her vice of choice was brandy. His was beer. She drank as hard as he
did, but she was marginally better dressed.
He was an old fool in the classic sense, and he was in usually two or
three times a week. He was cheap and left a pretty useless tip unless
I wanted a gobstopper, but I didn't mind him so much because he
ordered a draft, the simplest thing in the world to serve, drank it
quietly, and usually didn't insist on talking to me.
Servers have ways of getting revenge on their customers. The classic
method is to put something vile but unnoticeable in the food. I've
seen dessert spoons I've used to scrape the black gunk out of a sink
drain quickly rinsed, wiped, and plopped in sundae without passing
through that time-consuming wash and sanitize stage. I warned the
person what I'd been doing with it, they said "Ask me if I give a
shit." That's a rhetorical question, so I didn't bother to ask.
I was never really utterly evil with revenge (actually, I probably was
at some point, but I'm conveniently forgetting it now), and this guy
never really gave me an excuse to get nasty. I wasn't even rude with
him. In his mental state, he wouldn't have noticed anyway. "Sir,"
"Mister," "Motherfucker," it was all the same to him. I just had that
nagging feeling of resentment. Like most regulars, he was depressing.
He was haunting the place, like a ghost. My shoulders would slump
when I saw him, "You again?" would appear wearily in my head.
Everything he did was predictable. It never changed, and although I
have no way of knowing it, his entire life may have been this way.
For certain he was an alcoholic, and there I was, feeding him more of
what was likely to kill him. I can be pretty cold at times, but with
my own feelings toward alcohol and alcoholism, I would feel guilty
giving this guy his fix. But so what, eh? As long as I got my
gobstopper.
Once, I did have a little fun with him, but unintentionally. He was
sitting there drinking his beer, and a few stools down sat a bum, from
off the street. All the bum wanted was some coffee. I gave him a
cup. The bum, being what he was, didn't have the utmost in personal
hygiene, but I have seen (smelled) far worse. He mumbled to himself,
and occasionally cursed under his breath, making a spitting noise (he
wasn't actually firing saliva everywhere, I would have gotten rid of
him for that, but it did sound like it). I suspect he had a mild case
of Tourette's. I didn't mind him though. He was just sitting there
mumbling. He drank his coffee, didn't pester me for more, and he
paid. That should put things in perspective for you. A slighty
smelly, slighty Tourettish bum who orders one cup of coffee is pretty
high as customer standards go.
But what really endeared me was the expression on my regular's face as
he watched the bum drink his coffee. He had a look of complete
disgust. So stained old baby blue hats and hair care products from
the paint section of Canadian Tire were okay, but this bum was beneath
even his standards. I remember some young yuppie kids out drinking
and giving a similar look to my regular. It's all relative I guess.
Nowadays, I like to order from a sandwich place down the street.
Whenever I go in, the same guy is always there. He knows exactly what
I like on my sandwiches. I usually order one of three different subs,
but all I have to do is tell him which one. He doesn't need to ask
what I like on my sub, he just does it.
I'm his regular customer. Probably one of several.
He smiles, and his smiles seem genuine. He has no overwhelming need
to make it seem so, since he doesn't make tips like I used to. I tend
to think that he doesn't mind his job so much and is relieved to see
me, since he knows I'm not going to freak on him or hand him some
impossible order.
Of course, that's probably exactly what my regulars thought when I was
fantasizing about what I do with them, a chainsaw, and an isolated
cabin with the phone lines cut.
-------------------------------------------
4. How to avoid jury duty.
by Brian Newman
As you are flipping through the mail, sorting out the bills from the
advertisement, you see a strange envelope. You open it up and,
surprise, surprise, you have been picked for Jury Duty. This happens
to almost everyone and everyone has the same two feelings about it:
dread at the time involved and a feeling that, somehow, this is their
duty.
Living in modern society has its price, and Jury Duty is simply a part
of that cost. Should you feel that the cost is too high, should you
wish to avoid the burden, the following tells you the best way to
escape.
If you have just received the Jury Duty letter, DO NOT fill it out and
DO NOT return it. The letter will, no doubt, inform you that not
returning the form is a criminal offence, subject to various
penalties. You can safely forget about those penalties. Each batch
of mailed out Jury Duty forms gets about an 80% return rate. The 20%
not answering include those who have moved, who have not picked up
their mail or who do not, for whatever reason, want to get involved.
Almost always the 20% who do not answer are completely ignored and
their names are removed from the process. Very rarely, a second
request is sent out. The threatened penalty of criminal charges are
so rare as to be virtually unheard of. In the extremely rare event of
a "crack down" on people ignoring the call for Jury duty, the people
in the Judicial process will have to prove that you received their
notice. Normally this is done by sending a registered letter,
something that has to be signed for.
All adults should have two `signatures', one good for cheques,
contracts and credit cards, and another illegible one for anything you
are not certain about. If you chose not to return the Jury Duty form,
sign any future unexpected registered mail with a meaningless scrawl.
The odds, however, of you receiving future mail from the Judicial
process are extremely slim.
Perhaps you are one of the 80% who does answer and perhaps you have
already sent back a completed form. Returning that form enters your
name in future drawing process for possible future jury members.
If your name is picked, you will receive another letter, demanding
your presence at a location noted in that letter. A penalty for not
doing so will be spelled out. Again, a certain percentage (usually
less than 10%) do not show up and generally one of the following
things will happen:
1. They are ignored.
2. Their names are placed back in the lottery for future jury duty.
Or,
3. They receive a registered letter or a police visit asking why they
did not show up.
The letter, if signed for with that illegible scrawl, can be ignored.
A police visit means show up next time, exactly as told.
Various regions have assorted ways of running the Jury Duty lottery.
With any luck, you will be passed up. Receiving the second letter,
asking for your presence (generally at the courthouse or at a hotel
with the needed space) is your entry into a further lottery. In what
can be a long and boring day, groups of people are picked for possible
jury duty. Likely a Judge will speak or a film shown, thanking you
for being there, outlining what may be ahead for you and
congratulating you on being a fine citizen.
Fine citizen you are, but you can still very easily get out of this
process. If you are picked as a potential juror, the Judge and
lawyers for the prosecution and the defence will ask you a number of
questions. Both lawyers have a number of opportunities to remove
people from the potential jury and it is rather easy to get them to
give you your freedom.
Each time a lawyer tries to pick people they think will agree with
their side in the upcoming case. Both lawyers will approach all
potential jurors as if they are long lost friends. This gives you a
great chance to escape.
As soon as you see the lawyers for the prosecution and for the
defence, pick one, or both, as a potential `enemy'. The stronger you
can feel the emotion, the more powerful your body language is. Shake
your head, glare, make faces. The lawyers and any staff with them are
carefully noting all reactions by all potential jurors. They are
trying to pick out any prejudice against them, against their client or
even against their case. Showing a prejudice, even if you do not have
one, gets you quickly out of the courtroom. Almost all lawyers will
excuse any potential juror who they cannot see as a potential friend.
Their questions will be delivered with so much fake charm and
friendliness as they can master.
The Judge may ask questions of his own. For example, in a case
involving car theft, the Judge may ask all potential jurors if they
have ever been a victim of that type of crime. Even if you give a
positive answer to that type of question, the Judge will only ask if
that experience will influence your decision in the case they want you
to hear. No matter your answer, the Judge makes his own decision on
if you stay or go. Your answer to that second question may, however,
cause either the prosecution or the defence to want you excused.
Almost sure to get you off, is a loud "What?!" after any question,
from anyone, to anyone. You will be quickly asked if you have a
hearing problem. Yell out "What?!", make them repeat the question and
then loudly say that you do not have a hearing problem. No lawyer
wants to yell throughout the case and a fake hearing problem does
wonders to get you out.
Normally, financial concerns will not get you out from Jury Duty.
Check with your employer to see if you will continue to get a pay
cheque (a surprising number of companies do pay you while on Jury
Duty). If not, this knowledge will aid your skill in acting the part
of a juror neither side wants.
Health matters are more of a concern. If you are receiving any type
of medical treatment, or if you will in the near future, a Doctor's
letter will allow you to escape. Many have claimed non-existent
health problems, often on the original letter form asking them to
report for Jury Duty. As a firm rule, the Judicial system does not
check on any claim of health concerns. Most Doctor's will supply a
letter to excuse their patient, because of `stress', `headache' or
even `inability to concentrate'. However a loud "What?!" to your
Doctor will only result in an unnecessary hearing test.
-------------------------------------------
5. Malls
by Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro
Gerrard Square
I worked in a mall at one time. I don't usually go around telling
this to people though, because the mall was Gerrard Square. Those
that know about Gerrard Square, also know that it's a pit, as far as
malls go. But I was young, and I did not know any better, and at the
time, it was a great excuse to get to know the real working world.
I worked as Internal Maintenance, but it basically turned out more to
be more like Internal Security. I received training on how I was to
react in case of fire, how to deal with robberies, where equipment was
and how to use it. Best of all, if there was a bomb threat, I was to
help looking for the bomb. I was also given these cheesy grey pants
and a shirt with red and blue thin stripes and a gigantic GERRARD
SQUARE logo on it.
And most of all Gerrard Square was a sad, boring, tacky mall. It
tried really hard to be hip and to be cool. They even had Gretzky
there once signing pictures there, and it was the only time I saw
people that resembled human beings walk those floors, charmed by the
wordless elevator music.
At the time, none of this bothered me.
You see, being my first job, and being young and inexperienced about
what scum lurks in the working world, I worked hard at doing my best.
I felt a sense of pride, honour and most of all, I cared about what I
did.
Now a day, I look back with a smirk on my face. I was nave, but I
think that if it had not been for me working in the pits of hell, I
would never had learned how to work, do nothing, and still get paid.
I bought my first computer with that money. A brand spanking new
486DX, costing me a small fortune, having them just arrived on the
market.
Being the new guy and being just sixteen, I ended up getting the
shifts that no one else ever wanted: Saturdays and Sundays. That
meant that I was there half a day on Saturday, to closing, and all day
on Sunday. Riding my bike in the middle of winter at 6 in the morning
and coming back at 11 PM was not exactly fun.
Sundays began to slowly be the most fun days of all. It was just me
and a security guard, a nice bloke from up north that didn't mind
sharing his endless tales of pick-up trucks, picking up women, or all
of the above. I didn't mind listening to him though. My English at
the time was still not perfect, and this guy was able to make even the
most boring story something memorable. Or at least, at the time. I
can't remember exactly what those stories were, but if I just made one
up now, and I used the words "pick up truck", "very fast" and "this
chick I picked up", I wouldn't be all that far off. I do remember
though him explaining to me what alt.ductape.hamster was all about.
We were usually bored and walked around the mall together. In part so
we could talk, and in part to have more of a chance to hold down a
guy. I remember at one time we chased after this 6 feet 5 giant that
ran out of a clothing store with a whole bunch of shirts. We finally
caught him and while I was desperately trying to hold his legs, the
security guard handcuffed him. I remember neither of us could hold
him down. He kept on trying to bite us, and we later discovered why
when the cops arrived to take him away. He had Aids and was trying to
make us pay by giving it to us. That was the last time we bothered to
actually catch someone.
I ran into the security guard a while back while doing my Christmas
shopping, at a very high class mall. We were truly touched to see
each other, to the point we hugged. I introduced him to my
girlfriend, and me to his, who was the security guard next to him. A
tall, mean looking blonde, with a ferocious look in her eyes. She
seemed like the kind of woman that could've ripped your heart out and
showed it to you without you even realizing it.
Being Internal Maintenance meant that I was in charge of taking care
of vomit spilled by some unhappy customer down by the food court, the
odd piece of paper dropped on the floor, emptying the garbage bags if
they were too full, and cleaning the washrooms.
I was to clean the washrooms every fifteen minutes. I learned one
thing from this: women are more messy than men when it comes to using
a washroom. While I would enter the male's washroom, and at most, I'd
have to clean a tiny piece of toilet paper on the floor or the odd
pool of water next to the sink, or replace ONE roll of toilet paper,
it was never as bad as the women. What took five minutes in the
men's, took fifteen in the women's. Women had five stalls and two
rolls of toilet paper each. I'd usually find no toilet paper or more
commonly, no toilet paper roll at all. There would be bloody pads
stuck in just about every opening in the wall, stuffed down the
toilet, on the floor, on the sink. And many were the times when
someone had clearly gone to empty their intestines and clearly missed,
but it had not fallen on the floor, rather it was sprayed all over the
wall behind the toilet. Bras, underwear, bags full of old clothing,
shoes were among the many other things found which never made it to
the lost and found box. They were clearly abandoned there. So armed
with the unlimited amount of plastic disposable gloves that management
had provided us and plenty of an alcohol based bacteria killer that we
put on our hands, I'd get to work. After removing all material
articles, pads and the incredible amount of toilet paper scattered
around, I'd bring in the hose. We were not supposed to use the hose
in the bathrooms, but to instead use this tiny little scrub that
was so small it wouldn't have scrubbed a roach's ass, much less any
of the shit scattered all over the place.
The hose had this little container that I filled with Javex, kind of
like those that are used to spray insecticide on plants. I'd walk in,
release the pressure and blast the washroom from top to bottom. Once
I was done, not only did the washroom smell clean, it was also clean.
When the mall finally closed at 9 PM, I was to sweep the first and
second floor, and wash any stain I saw. Empty all the garbage bags
that were half full, and clean the washrooms for the day after. I was
however the only one that seemed to actually clean, unlike many of the
other people that worked.
The fact that nobody else took this much time in cleaning the
washrooms or the floor and that management wouldn't do anything about
it, should've been my first clue that I shouldn't have cared either
and saved myself from too much work. But I had it all figured out
flat. I could clean the washrooms and wipe the floors in a record
time of 45 minutes, with all the shortcuts I had discovered and yet
have a final product that could pass an inspection. And because both
I and security had to wait until 11 PM for the cleaning crew to
arrive, we had lots of time to play cards or do our patrols.
People seem to have this tendency that having sex in a public place is
fun. Not only because it's different, but because it also has the
thrill of the risk of getting caught.
When it comes to sex, I am pretty non-judgemental. I live by the
motto, live and let live, basically, leave me out of your life and I
won't bother looking at what you are doing. You have sex? Great, but
spare me the intimate details. I don't go around telling you how I
did it with my girlfriend.
We caught people having sex every Sunday night in or around Gerrard
Square.. It
was rare to catch someone having sex inside Gerrard Square, but at one
time, during our usual patrol, armed with one foot long Maglights, we
found two oriental men still in the toilet, after closing hours. One
man was performing oral sex on the other. It wasn't much of the
homosexuality that disturbed me, but the fact that they a) were having
sex in a public washroom, and b) they were having sex in a public
washroom in Gerrard Square. Just by rubbing your hand on the sink-
counter you were for sure going to contract some new disease that had
just formed from binding with all the bacteria crawling around there.
Another place people seemed to particularly enjoy fornication of the
heavy duty kind was the multi-level parking lot. We'd check the
stairs were we'd kick out a few drug addicts that were so stoned they
hadn't been able to find their way out, and walk all the way up to the
last level. Near the end there was usually a parked car, with the
windows all steamed up. The car wasn't on, but it was clearly moving.
For respect, and also to save ourselves from the sight, we'd turn on
and off the flash lights in their directions. This seemed however to
never work, and the car rocked just as much as before. We'd usually
have to tap on the window a few
times before anyone inside would even bother noticing us. Sometimes
we caught the same couple twice. You'd think they would learn...
Eventually I had to quit due to health reasons and moved on to better,
bigger things (No Frills). When I drive by and I see Gerrard Square,
I can't help it but shake my head thinking I was working there at one
time and the shit I went through. But it was fun, and I guess that
even in the worse of situations, if you have fun, it doesn't matter
how much shit you have to scrape off the wall of a toilet.
-------------------------------------------
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http://www.capnasty.org ISSN 1482-0471
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ZimID 708EC8D1 1994/09/14 EC B0 97 59 1D FE 7C 32 7E 04 2C 66 47 41 FB 7D
