Items of little or no interest

I have been out again. Today was only to Grovedale and then over to Coburg. But out nonetheless.

I had a bit of a situation here last night. As is my want, I was working back. Suddenly the call of nature occurred.

Off to the gents I trot. The cleaner is there. He is an affable man. Not really talkative, but that's how it goes. I think he starts quite early as he is often cleaning the toilets when I leave at 5:30 - 6. And I have seen his cleaning trolley packed with assorted toilet goodies here outside the gents (and ladies) as early as 5:15.

He also has a rather curious bald spot, not dissimilar to that favoured by Friar Tuck. And he always seems to be in the same blue polo top. Perhaps I will take the hat around and see if the other members of this floor can scrape together enough to purchase him a new one.

Anyway. I was in two minds. Toilet or wait until he is finished. However, the dilemma was compounded by the fact that I needed to use the cubicle, and he had just cleaned that. And he was still hanging around in the main part of the toilet, where the urinals and cubicles are situated.

I decided to wait him out back in my office.

I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited some more.

When I finally returned, yes, he had gone. And I was welcomed with the fresh scent of bleach, which to me, reminds me of my youthful school days, when cleaning the toilet block was done with a hose and seemingly buckets of bleach, by unknown people early in the morning, or at least before we started at school. Or should I say, at least until I started at school and needed to use the toilet.

This cleaning at school rendered the toilet unusable if you needed to go to the cubicle because of excess collections of water in great deep puddles on the concrete floor at the base of each cistern. If your pants were to drop into the water, you would get teased incessantly until it dried. And since most of my high school years consisted of sitting in class, your pants would never dry. But at least you knew the school toilets were clean, at least for a little while.

Little known fact about me: In all my years at a particular Grammar School in Caulfield, I never once used the cubicle. For me it was those toilet tasks only which required standing for my years at high school: 1983 to 1988.

I used to work with a guy at Council (who I am sure does not read this blog) who used to send me an email telling me that he was the first to use the toilet in the morning. He used to tell me with great pleasure that the water was blue, and smelt like lemon. That was until he had finished his morning ablutions.

Ahh.... good times.