God Don't Make No Trash

Carol called me into the office. After I closed the door, she thrust her phone at me.

"Do you see this? This is our microwave in the staff room."

"Gross. Did Reggie puke in it on his last day?"

"Do you remember the sign I taped up? The sign that said Your mother doesn't fucking work here and the maid quit?"

"Actually, my mom is pretty good at cleaning up messes."

"So this is what I find. Can you believe it? I just sent out a message to the staff that I cleaned up someone's food splatter, but if I EVER find such a mess again I'm taking out the fucking microwave and everyone can bring their own fucking microwaves from now on." (Yes, she says fuck a lot.)

"Sounds reasonable."

We then moved on to other appetizing topics--like the Stinky Man. Stinky Man came in last week in a wheelchair, wearing a battered cowboy hat and no shoes. His feet were delightfully deformed, especially the right one: the toes looked like potatoes, with gravy for nails. Worst of all was the immense hot-urine stench that radiated off his body. The kind of stench that forms a film on your tongue and grows yellow stains on your eyeballs. He used the elevator to go upstairs, and a little while later a customer came down to tell me in a conspiratorial whisper that a "gentleman" was upstairs ripping out pages from magazines. He seemed "troubled," she said, so I must have already known who he was. Sighing, and holding my breath, I went upstairs to tell Stinky to stop ripping up our magazines. He growled his assent. I didn't hear from him again until we were closing. I had turned off the elevator, somehow forgetting he was upstairs still, and I could hear him cursing and yelling oaths as he kept slapping at the button. Getting off at the ground floor, he turned to me and asked where the restroom was. I immediately told him we were closing, sorry. Fine, he growled, I'll just go in my pants.

"Oh, my God, Greg," Carol said. "Gary was like that in his last year."

"Uh..." Carol's husband had died from diabetes two years ago, as she told all the staff in practically her first week.

"Gary went into a Subway in his wheelchair, and back then he took very few baths so he smelled pretty bad. Someone tried to give him some money! They thought he was homeless!" Carol shrieked with laughter.

"Uh...." I stared.

Carol wiped at a tear. "Yeah, and then he died."

"Uh... Can you show me the picture of that microwave again?"

The picture was so clear. You could see every noodle. I stared and stared at it. It's a wondrous age we live in.

REGGIE UPDATE: Came into work four hours late on Sunday, and then called out the next day! That's our Reggie--wowing 'em at his new job!