The Poop Diaries Read online

  I did not have the time nor the stomach to hypothesize. The smell and sight were so disgusting, my legs moved faster than my brain, making a beeline towards the door. Although I did not get very far.

  “This owner is a regular customer,” I thought. “He trusted me when his tenant doubted me. I had to stay and get the job done.”

  My brain prevailed. I walked back inside to finish the job.

  Because of the smell, we could only work in twenty-minute intervals. The job took about an hour to finish. Minutes before we headed out, one of the tenants came home. She looked to be in her twenties with long blond hair and a pale complexion. I assumed she was the one who doubted my work because she did not even acknowledge my presence. She walked straight past me, like I was a ghost, and approached one of my colleagues. I admit he was much better looking.

  “Yeah, I lost my snake about two weeks ago,” I overheard her say.

  “What kind of snake?” replied my colleague.

  “It was about six-feet-long,” she said.

  “Really?” said my colleague.

  “Yeah. Sometimes I let it out. But it always came back. It will come back,” she said.

  We did not have the heart to tell her otherwise. We also did not want her to think we killed it. Based on the smell, that snake had died well before our arrival. Nonetheless, people love to point fingers, and she did not trust me to begin with, so it was best not to say anything. We told the building owner. He did not take the news well.

  “What?!” he exclaimed. I could hear the anger in his voice.

  “Pets are not allowed in the building! The rules are spelled out in the lease!” he said.

  He told the tenant about the snake and demanded she pay our bill.

  I have found kittens in sewers, rats in all kinds of places, and even a squirrel one time. That day was the first (and hopefully last) time I had ever found a snake.

  A MOMENT OF REFLECTION

  The best and sometimes worst part about my job is that there is always a surprise. While the unexpected may be horrifically disgusting, at least it is unexpected, which keeps things interesting.

  I would like to pass on some words of wisdom. Do not think you know or have seen it all. People will always surprise you. I enjoy meeting every one of them, no matter how pleasant, disgusting, or awkward the encounter. Sometimes I meet people who are too trusting and overly nice. Other times, I meet people who do not trust me at all. Some people are extremely smart and could easily fix the problem themselves if they wanted to fix it. Others, I am surprised can even open the door to get out of their house.

  People surprise me in all kinds of situations, yet I find a way to treat everyone equally, with the same level of respect. That is part of the job, and it is one I do not plan on leaving any time soon.

  CHAPTER 2

  CARISSA

  I used to manage a bunch of apartment buildings with my grandma. She exposed me to every facet of the business such as getting loans from banks, showing apartments to tenants, evictions, carpentry, painting, and plumbing. You name it; I did it. My grandma taught me how to do everything. I worked with her for nine years, until I was twenty-six-years-old. At that point, I wanted a change. My aunt, mom, and uncle took over my part of the business, giving me the opportunity to do my own thing.

  I liked any job that involved working with my hands, so I started with carpentry. I enjoyed it but learned that when carpenters move up the ladder, they run job sites. They are the first person on-site in the morning and the last person to leave in the evening. They become general contractors and must babysit the electricians, plumbers and other trades. Trying to get all the guys to listen to me was not my cup of tea. I am a woman in a male-dominated industry, which makes everything more challenging.

  One time I was leading a job at a customer’s home. One of the carpenters, who I was managing, was tasked to install granite countertops. He parked his truck in the driveway so he could easily carry the granite into the house. When he was working on the installation, however, I received a call from the window guys. They needed to install a big bay window and asked if the carpenter could move his truck so they could park close to the house.

  “Hey Bill,” I said. “Can you please move your truck so the window guys can park there? They have a big bay window they need to bring inside.”

  He completely ignored me, pretending not to hear me. The job site was quiet that morning. It was nearly impossible for him not to have heard me.

  “Bill,” I repeated. “Can you please move your truck? The window guys need to park there.”

  “You need to use your big boy voice,” he snapped, without even glancing in my direction.

  After a comment like that, I was no longer playing nicely.

  “You need to move your stupid, fucking truck right fucking now or you will never work at one of my job sites ever again!” I yelled.

  He looked at me. I stared back at him, with daggers sticking out of my eyes. He walked out in a huff and moved his truck.

  That incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had enough with carpentry. After taking a long, hard look at my options, I decided to go to plumbing school. Plumbers will always have work, even in a bad economy. When money is tight, people will always find a way to pay for a plumber because they need hot and running water and a working toilet. I had also never been an office kind of person. I wanted to go somewhere and do something different every day. Not to mention, in Canada, the first two years of plumbing school focus on pipe and steam fittings. The last two years focus on a plumbing specialization. So, when you graduate, you have a broad skill set and a range of options, some of which have nothing to do with poop. I have worked on geothermal systems, boilers, floor heating systems, and gas lines. I installed paint lines in newspaper printing machines and paint booths for cars. A plumber is required for pretty much anything that has to do with a pipe.

  I have been a plumber for the past eight years and have zero regrets. I meet all sorts of interesting people and go to all sorts of interesting places.

  I am Carissa, and these are my diaries.

  DUDE, REALLY?

  Being a service plumber, I have worked for a few companies that have required an on-call shift. One week each month, I carried an on-call phone. If a customer called, I had to arrive at the house or wherever the problem was within one hour. If more than one person called during the same window of time, the boss would have to wake up and go, which did not happen often.

  During one of those on-call weeks, at half-past midnight, the phone woke me up from a deep slumber. It was from a waitress at a bar.

  “The mainline in the men’s washroom is plugged,” she said. “Nothing is working, and this place is packed. Can you please come fix it?”

  “Alright. I will be right over,” I replied, still half asleep.

  Since I had to arrive at the bar within one hour, I could not afford to move slowly. I jumped out of bed, threw on a t-shirt, light brown coveralls, and a sweater jacket, and headed to my plumbing van.

  The bar was a long, brick building with big windows on each side. Cars filled every space in the front parking lot, so I parked in the back by the entrance to the kitchen. I pressed the delivery buzzer outside the kitchen door. A dishwasher greeted me.

  “Hi, I am the plumber,” I said.

  “Come in,” he replied, opening the door wider.

  The kitchen was loud and hot. People were everywhere, yelling out orders, clanking pots and pans and washing dishes. I climbed a staircase that led to an office. The manager and waitress who had called me were chatting inside. They looked up when they saw me in the doorway.

  “Hello!” they s
aid in unison, seemingly overjoyed to see me.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” said the manager.

  “No problem. Can you show me the washroom?” I asked.

  He walked me downstairs through the packed bar and into the men’s washroom.

  “A group of guys were in here earlier; however nothing was working. Be careful. Sometimes we find needles and stuff in the toilets,” he said and walked away.

  The bathroom was large. Eight toilet stalls were on the right side of the room, backed up against the beige, tile wall. Twelve urinals were on the left, closer to the door. A row of sinks stood in front of the toilets. For the most part, the bathroom was clean, except for the area around the floor drain, which sat in the middle of the toilets and urinals. Shit, toilet paper, and vomit oozed out of the drain. When you work in bar bathrooms, you find a mix of odd and disgusting stuff clogging the lines. Whatever someone wore on their head while leaning over to puke in the toilet – costume jewelry, sunglasses, headbands with feathers – we find it.

  The pile of excrement, as disgusting as it sounds, did not bother me. The smell did not nauseate me either. My family lived on a farm. Growing up, I frequently smelled rotten wheat, which is a million times worse than the smell of feces. One of my chores was to empty the wheat bin and take it to the grain pool. Some of the grain would stick to the bottom of the bin and become rotten and mushy. Mice and rats crawled in for a taste and often wound up dying. By the time I emptied the bin, their corpses were rotted along with the grain. I had to shovel it out to make room for more. It was the most horrific smell in the world. The experience gave me the gift of a strong stomach, a gift that comes in handy for a plumber.

  I placed an “Out of Service” sign on the bathroom door and got to work. To avoid sticking my snake down the filthy floor drain, I looked for the cleanout, which was at the end of the bathroom. It only took a few minutes to unclog everything; however my job was not finished. I noticed a urinal was not draining properly, so I pulled it off the wall and stuck the snake down there as well. It quickly unplugged. Suddenly, I heard a guy’s voice behind me.

  “Oh, sorry,” he stammered nervously.

  I turned around. The guy looked to be about my age – thirty years old. He had short, brown hair and a medium size build. He was noticeably drunk, although it was 1:30 a.m. in a bar, so that was to be expected.

  “It is okay,” I said. “I am almost finished.”

  “The other washroom is full, so I thought I would use this one,” he replied.

  “Well if you are not shy, feel free to use a urinal,” I said, glancing at the row of urinals.

  While he stood there, deciding which one to use, I picked up the urinal I had unplugged and began reinstalling it against the wall. Out of the eleven urinals to choose from, the guy chose to pee in the one directly next to me. Fortunately, there were stall-like dividers on the sides of the urinals so I could not see anything, although I heard it. The sound of pee slapping against porcelain echoed through the bathroom. I tried to ignore it, focusing on tightening the urinal against the wall.

  “So, are you single?” he asked, in mid-stream. “Want to go out sometime?”

  Laughing hysterically, I nearly dropped the urinal.

  “Are you seriously asking me out right now? You cannot wait until you finish peeing?” I asked incredulously.

  He stopped peeing.

  “Oh sorry,” he stammered again, clearly embarrassed. “So, that is a no then?”

  I could not stop laughing.

  “Can I at least peak around and see if I want to say ‘yes?’” I asked half-joking.

  “No,” he said curtly.

  He quickly zipped up his pants and ran out of the washroom. He did not even wash his hands. I finished the job, removed the sign from the washroom, and walked back through the bar to find the manager. I never saw that guy again.

  THE BATHROOM SADIST

  The first time a guy asked me out at a job site was when I was a first-year apprentice. I will never forget that day. I was assigned to unclog a drain in the women’s washroom of a large, commercial building. Three hundred employees worked there. The building stretched across an entire block with large parking lots on both sides. The job was my first one that day. It is never fun to work on washroom drains first thing in the morning. You spend the entire day dirty and stinky.

  I arrived at the building at 8:30 a.m. The receptionist greeted me.

  “Hi, I am the plumber. I am here to fix the drain in the women’s washroom,” I said. “Can you please introduce me to the maintenance guy? He needs to show me the bathroom.”

  Five minutes later, the maintenance guy walked through the doors. He was an older gentleman. His head was totally bald. He wore a blue maintenance uniform.

  “Hello there,” he said with a smile. “How is your day going?”

  “Good,” I replied, smiling back. “It is early though. How is your day going?”

  “Great!” he exclaimed.

  We walked down a long hallway, passing the main office, which was filled with desks and cubicles. We walked past one set of washrooms, which were working fine. Looking up and around, I checked out all the plumbing as we continued walking. Sometimes I need all the information I can get before I start a project. We walked through a set of double doors, across a warehouse and towards the back, until we reached the second set of washrooms.

  “Here we are,” he said, opening the women’s washroom door.

  The bathroom was large. It had five, dark green stalls and bright white walls. Poop and toilet paper covered the white, tile floor. The sewage backed up about three feet to the floor drain. The water was continuously running on one of the toilets, causing the water to overflow and spillover. The room smelled like pure sewage. Sometimes when I work in bathrooms, they smell like perfume spray on top of poop. In this case, however, it only smelled like poop, which frankly I prefer over perfume covered poop.

  “I have to get more tools,” I said to the maintenance guy.

  My snake would not be enough. The place needed a light clean when I was finished.

  “Walk through the warehouse to the secretary’s desk who can point you to the parking lot,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  I went back to my van, collected more tools and cleaning supplies, and headed back inside. While walking towards the first set of washrooms, I saw a guy leaning against the wall, watching me. He looked young and was tall. He had long hair, which hung over his ears. He wore light jeans and a t-shirt with a rock band logo on it.

  “Hello,” he said as I walked by him.

  “Hi,” I replied, and kept walking.

  He started walking with me.

  “I have not seen you around before,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “I do not work here,” I replied, staring straight ahead. “I am here to fix the plumbing.”

  “Oh yeah? What is broken?” he asked.

  When we arrived at the double doors, he held one open for me.

  “The women’s washroom is plugged,” I said. “I have to unplug it.”

  “What company do you work for?” he asked.

  I hesitated, not knowing if I should disclose my company’s name. Although considering my branded van was parked in the lot, I told him.

  When we reached the women’s washroom, I stopped and looked up at him.

  “Okay,” he said, catching my hint. “I will let you get to work.”

  Inside the washroom, I took a deep breath. Among the shit, toilet paper, and smell of sewage, I started to relax.

  The job was easy. The minute I stuc
k my snake down the floor drain, everything unplugged. The water started draining, leaving nuggets of poop and toilet paper behind. I dumped a bucket of water down the drain to eliminate the smell, cleaned up the poop and toilet paper, and dried the floor with a rag pinned under my shoe. The broken toilet was still running. To fix it, I had to install a new flapper. The part was in my van. With my snake in hand, I walked out of the washroom. Surprisingly, the guy was waiting for me. He must have stood there for the entire hour I was working.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  I paused, not knowing how to respond. It was such an odd question.

  “Can I help you with anything? Can I carry that?” he asked, pointing to the coils that came with my snake.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I am okay.”

  I walked quickly towards the warehouse.

  “Did you get everything fixed up?” he asked, following my every step.

  “Almost,” I said. “What do you do here?”

  It seemed unusual that he had the free time to hang around outside a washroom for an hour. I thought (and hoped) he was the maintenance man’s assistant or someone connected to plumbing. Why was he still there? Didn’t he have a job to do?

  “I work in the cubicles up front,” he replied.

  “Do you need anything? Can I help you?” I asked, coming to a halt outside the first set of washrooms.

  “Well, actually,” he stammered. “I was wondering if you want to go out sometime?”