One Fatal Flush

While living in Aspen I worked at the Mexican restaurant La Cantina.  That job will most likely go down as one of my best jobs ever.  Not only were the money and the atmosphere phenomenal, but the friendships I made with my coworkers are the kind that will last a lifetime.  Over my almost four years on the payroll I saw a lot of people come and go; but throughout there was a core group of us that remained as close as family.  To this day I still consider them as such, even though we are currently spread out across the country.  Darren was (and is) the fearless leader of this family, the Mama Pata if you will.  He was the kind of boss/friend that I told EVERYTHING to and often turned to for advice.

So now that I’ve given a brief background, on with the story…

My usual shift started at 3:30pm.  Often times I would be doing something around town during the day then just head in to work a little early and get ready there.  The restrooms at Cantina are located downstairs, but there is one single handicapped bathroom upstairs located near the entrance to the kitchen.  At some point it was determined that this was the “employee bathroom”.   It was here that I always changed and got ready for my shift, this day was no different.

Before changing my shirt, I took the sunglasses that are always resting on top of my head and hooked them in to my pocket so they wouldn’t fall.  My memory doesn’t allow me to recall exactly what led up to this, but somewhere during my “getting ready” those sunglasses somehow flew out of my pocket and landed with a splash right in to the toilet.

I had not used the toilet while in there so the glasses were just sitting in plain old toilet water.  Any normal human being would have just reached in, grabbed them out, rinsed them off and gone on with their lives as if nothing happened.  If I were normal, and if that’s how this story went, then it probably wouldn’t be on this blog now would it?

I went for option B.  I bolted out of the bathroom in search of Darren.  The restaurant was fairly empty at that time of day so I expected to find him just standing there wiping menus, ready to save the day.  Instead I found him talking to some customers about who knows what.  The customers’ backs were to me so I tried my best to get in Darren’s line of sight and get his attention.  I kept giving him my “It’s important, I need you” look.  I’m pretty sure he interpreted it as my “I have something really funny to tell you and I can’t wait” look and ignored me. 

After what seemed like forever, Darren ended his conversation and walked over towards me. 

“D!  I need your help!  I know this is going to sound REALLY weird, but I need you to come to the bathroom with me and see what I did,” I explained.  Surprisingly, he didn’t question me and the two of us went to investigate.

I pulled the door handle only to discover it was locked.  NOOO!!  I immediately realized that the woman who had been sitting at table 4 just 30 seconds ago had somehow snuck by me and was in the bathroom.

“Smiles, what is going on?” Darren asked.  I led him around the corner and explained what had happened. 

“Why didn’t you just take them out?”
“Because I came looking for you instead!”  DUH!

As soon as Table 4 lady exited, we both rushed in to assess the damage.  We were greeted with an empty toilet bowl.  It seemed as though the glasses were flushed with ease.  Since there didn’t appear to be any clogging, we assumed all was right with the world again; I giggled, Darren shook his head saying, “oooh Smiley, Smiley, Smiley.  You crazy.”  And we moved on with our lives.

The next day I had off so I went down valley to do some shopping.  Early afternoon I received a phone call from the manager on duty at Cantina.  He was calling to inform me that because of my sunglass flushing incident the toilet in the employee bathroom was overflowing and flooding the area.  Apparently one of the other employees on duty hadn’t heard about the incident and used the facilities to go #2.  The combination of her actions with my sunglasses caused a blockage in the pipes and thus the overflowing.  The manager said it was severe enough a problem that a plumber was called; he just thought I should be aware since I was partly to blame.  It didn’t sound too serious and a plumber was on his way, so again, I figured all was right with the world and I went on with my day. 

A few hours later I got a call from Darren, “You need to get in here.”  He didn’t sound his normal chipper self, and he didn’t call me by my nickname…this can’t be good.

Upon arriving back at Cantina I was greeted by a straight-faced Darren, “Come with me.  I want you to see what you’ve caused.”  Apparently the clog from earlier in the day required the plumber to snake the drain.  When the snake met the sunglasses in the drain it caused the device to jerk back.  The backlash of the jerk did this…

Oops!!

Thankfully this incident wasn’t what ended my Cantina career.  I don’t know what it was that made Darren show mercy on me for this very expensive mistake.  Perhaps it was because a family’s love is unconditional, you stick together through thick and thin.  Or perhaps it was because he figured keeping me around was the best way to get repaid.  Whatever it was, I’m grateful for it.  It would have been quite the shame if I had lost that job to one fatal flush!