Death By Automatic Toilet

Working at the Olive Garden was rarely boring. It was never quiet, either. Always present was the sound of forks clinking, people laughing, the manager telling me to seat guests faster, the servers telling me to seat guests slower, and the busboys generally keeping all of us in a good mood.

One particular day, before opening, my fellow hosts and I were rolling silverware and listening to the drones of the vacuum cleaner. I realized if I was going to have a chance to hit the bathroom at any time during my shift it would be at the present.

This particular Olive Garden had automatically flushing toilets, which in theory are wonderful. They, however, gave us quite a few problems, clogging and breaking fairly regularly.

On this spring morning there were no problems on the bathroom front; that is until I showed up. I slipped into the first stall, which was my favorite stall, and went on with business. As I stood up, my key ring, holding car and house keys, slipped out of my pocket and landed with a giant kerplunk into the toilet. Panicked, I of course froze and the magic porcelain gateway to the sewer opened its wide mouth and devoured all of the contents with a flush, including my keys.

Horrified, I simply stared into the now tranquil pool of water, watching the light reflect off the bottom of the brilliant white toilet bowl. It looked so innocent, so pure, so completely incapable of doing something as horrendous as stealing my car keys. This toilet with its shining silver hardware and gleaming white body, I decided, was a master con artist.

My sister delivered my spare set of car keys later that day. I am sure, however, that a rat somewhere has a new set of bling around its neck. I also can’t help but expect my car alarm to suddenly go crazy when that hypothetical rat pushes the panic button on my car keys. Until that day, however, I am forced to accept the death of my first set of car keys, a death by automatic flushing.

Taking the Plunge

Blogging.

When I think of blogging, I think of a fourty year old man in his parents' basement, pretending he has a life. Orange Cheeto stains cover his shirt and his keyboard. He thinks that the life he's created for himself is real - he forgets that he is a pathetic, overweight man still mooching off of his parents' income.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I've decided to take the plunge, though. Maybe blogging isn't just for the deadbeat in his parents' basement. Maybe it's for people like me, people struggling to get their foot in the writing industry.

So here it goes.
Hope you enjoy.