Stories from Kroger #6: The Restroom

I've seen a lot crazy sights at Ghetto Kroger.

Fights in the parking lot.

Tranny's sticking T-Bone steaks in their underwear.

The occasional drunk college kid passing out in the store.

Even the restrooms had some crazy sights.

One particular night when I was wrapping up my daily bagging duties, I ran into the men's room to take a quick piss. As I pushed open the door, my eyeballs focused on a bum, standing next to the sink bathing himself. He was naked all the way down to his dirty, brown skivies.

"Oh, my bad," he said. "Excuse me."

"No big deal," I shouted out. "I just have to take a piss."

In reality, I was a bit freaked out.

After doing my business, I zipped up my pants and headed to the door.

The bum looked over his shoulder, stopped his bathing and politely asked, "You want to use the sink to wash your hands?"

I looked at his peppered beard. It was slathered in brown soap.

I looked at the sink. It was an awful shade of brown.

"Naw, I'm good," I said as I exited the restroom.

I should add that the Kroger restroom was employee-only. But that didn't stop anyone from using it.

Two more stories then I'm finished. I promise.

Another day I left the breakroom to head back to the front of the store to continue my bagging duties. Before I could exit the backroom, this enormous man hobbled through the swinging doors.

I had to actually move out of the way so he could fit through. He had to be about 400 pounds.

And, wouldn't you know it, he made a beeline straight for the unlocked restroom.

"Wow," I thought to myself. "That's a pretty big man." And that was that.

It wasn't until after about an hour or so of bagging groceries that I would begin to hate that mother fucker.

"Eimer," my manager approached me as my mind was completely lost staring at yet another beautiful blonde cashier's ass. "Can you come over here a minute."

I noticed the odd look on his face and presumed I was going to be fired. I should note that whenever a higher authority wants to talk to me, I always assume that I'm being fired.

"Ummm, I don't know how to put this, so I'm just going to say it," he said.

"What?" I asked. I was truly intrigued.

"Well," he paused. "Some fat guy shit in the men's restroom and left a pretty big mess. I need you to go clean it up."

Being head bagger, I figured this type of nonsense should be delegated to the last man on the totem pole. Restroom clean-up was definitely not on the head bagger's list of duties.

"What about Phil?" I said referring the store's new bagger/cart getter. "Or how about Jonas?"

"Oh we asked Phil. But when he found out he had to clean up someone else's shit, he quit," said the manager rubbing his head. "And Jonas just left for the day."

I probably looked like a zombie at this point.

"So can you take one for the team and help me out here?" the manager asked. "I won't forget it."

I tried to say "Fuck that shit. I quit too!" But, on the journey from my brain to my mouth, the wiring got all messsed up and instead I said, "Okay, I'll do it."

Armed with every cleaning product known to man, I entered the restroom and...let's just say it was a battle of epic proportions. Poop stains were everywhere. I'm not sure, but it almost looked like the guy just walked into the stall, backed up until the back of his knees hit the toilet. Then dropped his pants and took a shit without even sitting down. Or looking.

I should also note that this was, by far, one of my most degrading times at Ghetto Kroger; cleaning up a fat man's blowout.

However, another story came out of the entire poop-cleaning process. Last one I promise.

As I was cleaning up the chunky-man's shit, I started to read some of the writings on the bathroom stall. While making their brown sacrifice to the porcelain god, co-workers were scribbling a war of words with other co-workers. Some were dirty. Some were crude. Most of them roused some giggles from my shit-stained face.

Than I wondered, 'Was this the way early man communicated with each other?' Going from cave-to-cave, scrawling crude 'fuck you' and 'your penis is small' jokes for other cavemen to be entertained after a day's sabretooth hunting?

One particular quote caught my attention. Hmm, it wasn't really a quote. More of a poem.

No. Let's not say a poem.

Sort of, almost, like a rap.

It went like this:

Moody Mas is teaching class.
Ya'll suckas are on my level.
Sicker than the Son of Sam I am.
I slam. I'm worse than the Devil.

No, it wasn't William Shakespeare, Cormac McCarthy or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hell, it didn't even come close to Run DMC. But, somehow this rhyme found a spot in the gray matter of my brain going on 15 years now.

I just can't seem to shake it.

So, after I cleaned up the poop. I thoroughly washed my hands in the restroom sink.

Then I thought about the naked bum who, more than likely, probably washed his testicles in the same sink. I stopped mid-wash and instead opted to wash my hands in the sink located in the meat department. More sterile I figured.

On my journey, I couldn't help but recite that stupid rap over again. And, during my rap, I wanted to add a little flava. I decided to put a little thug into my newly remembered restroom rhyme...

Moody Mas is teaching class.
Ya'll suckas are on my level.
Sicker than the Son of Sam I am.
I slam. I'm worse than the Devil.

Fred, the cashier, was walking by and suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"What did you just say?" he asked me.

I recited the rap again.

"Dude," Fred said with a big smile on his face. "I wrote that!"

Other Stories from Ghetto Kroger:
Story #1: Intro
Story #2: Magic
Story #3: Big Head
Story #4: Goldilocks
Story #5: Jonas