One Little Trashcan...

...that is all it takes...

One trash can to change a beautiful sunshiny day into a bleak, depressing one. One lone trashcan to wipe the smile off of a housekeeper's face. One, just one trashcan to change "ahead of schedule" to "not so ahead of schedule"

How is that possible? Well dear ones, this was not your usual trashcan. Not your usual, pluck the full bag out and put a new one in 60 second fix. No, no, not at all.

Let us go back in time a bit shall we?

Today is a Monday as I am sure you are aware. Today for most people is the beginning of a another week of work. It was for me as well but it usually is not. Monday is not a regular day of work for me but today we were having CPR/ First Aid training at work and my boss figured since i would have to come in anyway i might as well work today and take Friday off. Fine with me i had things I wanted to do Friday anyhow. What made today very different from a regular day was that i would have to cram my regular eight hours of work into seven so that i could go to the class.

I was doing good for time, slowly getting ahead of my normal time, minute by minute room by room. Finally i was on my second to last room and was exactly where i needed to be to get everything done in time for class. As i was heading into the bathroom a passing nurse called out to me and told me that a guy from maintenance had been in there earlier cleaning the toilet or something. i then remembered that i has seen him in another room with the extractor. What he was doing i don't know but i figured it was probably something routine in each room and as long as he was out of this room it would be fine to clean. So i went in and began cleaning the toilet, As i was doing so i noticed the floor around the toilet seemed wet. i reached over to move the trashcan beside the toilet and see how wet it was. i gave the trashcan a small tug. it did not move it, not so much as budge. Something was not right here. I reached over with both hands and pulled the trashcan toward me. the content of the trashcan sloshed and i found myself staring down in to a very wet, very smelly, very slimy trash filled trash can. My first thought was where could i get rid of both the water and the trash. the answer came in the form of another housekeeper cleaning just across the hall. She cringed when i showed her the trashcan and said with a very apologetic face, "Your gonna have to put on some gloves and pull out as much of the trash as possible and throw it away. The water needs to be dumped down the biohazard sink." If it had been a regular trashcan with regular trash this might not have been so bad. it also would have helped if the nurse had not decided just then to tell me that the toilet had "blown up" and sent water everywhere and the water in the trashcan had most certainly come from the explosion. So now i have unmentionable, horrific smelly nastiness soaked in some seriously bad smelling toilet water. Did i mention that the trash can was a medium sized trashcan filled to the brim? I some how survived cleaning up the mess but it put me too far behind in my work so one of the other housekeepers finished my last bit of cleaning while I went on a short lunch break, made thus by the fact that i somehow had lost my appetite. I have NO idea why. Then i went to the class and go to watch one of the maintenance guys send a dummy's sternum through its backbone. Or at least he would have if the dummy had bones. If i ever need cpr I know who I do NOT want present. Just cause the lady said that CPR breaks ribs does not mean you need to break all of them, and the back bone, and puncture a lung, and the heart...