Freeform Friday 06 - Bathroom Attendants

This is a re-post of an old MySpace blog.

I don't go into Los Angeles or Hollywood as much as I should, seeing as how I live 45 minutes away from their glitz and glamour. People from all those red states in the middle of the country seem to think that there are celebrities and famous people out and about, just walking the streets. And, according to the US Weekly that inexplicably shows up to my house every week, stars are wandering around the streets doing things just like all the rest of us. Things like driving to the grocery store in Ferraris and walking their dogs in $1000 Jimmy Choo Studded Shearling Boots. However, what most of those people in the Midwest don't realize is that there is a seedy underbelly to Hollywood rarely shown on the silver screen.

This seedy underbelly is inhabited by bathroom attendants, those men and women who view the sink in the restroom like Michelangelo viewed a slab of marble. Bathroom attendants stand or sit on a stool in restrooms ensuring that there are myriad choices of candy, cologne and soap. The main responsibility of the bathroom attendant is to hand the visitor a towel after he or she has finished drying his or her hands. Actually, I take that back. The main responsibility of the bathroom attendant is to make me feel like a jerk.

Next to the dishes of candy and bottles of cologne there is always a jar for tips.

Always.

The tip jar is always there, staring at me, mocking me, making me feel like the biggest jerk because I can't spare a few bucks for the guy who just handed me a paper towel. But why should I give money to someone who just gave me a paper towel? In life we pay for services we cannot do ourselves or that we are unwilling to do ourselves. I am completely incapable of fixing my truck, which is why I pay someone to do it. I am completely capable of washing my truck but I am unwilling to do it, so I pay someone to wash my truck for me. Grabbing a paper towel to dry my hands is not something I cannot do or something I am unwilling to do. So why in the world should I give someone money to give me a paper towel?

I am adamantly opposed to bathroom attendants. They expect me to pay them for something that I manage to do every day on my own and they stand there and stare at my back while I'm at the urinal, causing a little bit of stage fright. I don't think that they are bad people but they have chosen a bad, unnecessary and intrusive profession. Take your candy, take your cologne but leave the paper towels – I can grab those myself.