It's Still a More Respectable Career Choice than "Congressman"

According to a front page article in today's New York Times, the era of the washroom attendant is nearing its end.  In an unrelated story, Windows 95 has been described as "a bit buggy."

Seriously, though, it's about bloody time.  I'm not exactly sure--and the article doesn't say--when the era of washroom attendants began.  Probably during the more sybaritic days of the Roman Empire; somebody had to clean up after Caligula.  But this is the twenty-first century!  We've long since passed the time when people in otherwise good health needed "attending" in a bathroom.

On those rare occasions when I do encounter a washroom attendant, I feel nothing so much as acute unease.  Who is this guy?  Is he going to be listening?  Am I actually supposed to give someone a tip for handing me a paper towel?

Thankfully, I don't get "stage fright," as some people do--and for those poor souls, an attended bathroom must be a special kind of Hell--but I am instantly flooded with feelings of middle-class guilt--feelings unmitigated by the fact that I am likely in a high-end establishment and have just eaten a meal that may have cost about as much as this poor fellow's entire nightly wages.  While I myself can enjoy the occasional visit to the "high life," this man spends every night exposed to the digestive endgames of the one percent.  So I feel guilt, which makes me wish the attendant weren't there--which makes me feel guilty for wishing the attendant weren't there!  After all, I fully support and celebrate the working man (and woman): Anyone willing to do a job, however distasteful--hell, especially distasteful--deserves some respect.

And herein lies my discomfort: What will become of the dwindling numbers of washroom attendants when this profession ultimately goes the way of mastodon wrangler and newspaper reporter?  Because, let's face it, a person who goes into the bathroom-monitoring industry probably didn't start out with a whole lot of career options: "Well, Mike, you've narrowed your choices down to molecular biology at Tufts or handing out towels to people who have just defecated.  What do you think?"

(All right, all right.  In fairness, the Yale Washroom Attendant program did provide solid career training as well as a rich grounding in the liberal arts until it was discontinued in 1972.)

I suppose a place exists for the bathroom attendant, particularly at large and loud clubs--where the job calls not so much for a connoisseur's knowledge of soaps and colognes as for the ability to prevent people from doing drugs or having sex in blacklit stalls.  Still, I will not miss those moments--however rare--when I come upon a tuxedoed gentleman waiting to hand me a washcloth or a toothpick or--a specialty of one Manhattan restroom attendant--a handful of Reese's Pieces.  Sure, after I drop a waffle, I crave peanut butter as much as the next guy.  But I am a big boy now: I can get my post-poop candy myself.

Do People Really Need to Look Up "Breathtaking"?

Regular readers of "The Solipsist" look forward to the "Thursday Trendwatch" feature.  In these installments, I review the topics listed in Yahoo's "Trending Now" section, trying to ascertain why these topics are, in fact, trending and making snarky comments all along the way.  At the moment, for example, the  number-one trending topic is KAT VON D.

The tattooed temptress has landed on the trendlist for all the wrong reasons.  (Well, not all the wrong reasons: She has not, to my knowledge, tickled an otter without permission.)  Her line of lip colorings,  "Painted Love," features such shade names as "Hellbent" and "Backstage Bambi."  Now, however, the make-up chain Sephora has pulled one of these lipsticks from its shelves because some people have taken offense at the name: "Celebutard."  I have no idea why people have a problem with a lipstick named after the delicious celery-mustard hybrid grown in the Carpathians, but apparently they do, and Sephora has caved to the pressure.

Anyway, as I say, this trendwatch appears regularly every Thursday except when it doesn't, which is most Thursdays.  I bring it up here, though, because I noticed the other day that Dictionary.com features its own trend list, one even more mystifying than Yahoo's.  Whereas Yahoo! at least provides links on its trending topics, links which take one to news stories that generally shed light on the reasons for an item's sudden popularity, Dictionary.com simply gives a list of. . . words.  One can, of course, click on the words, but this provides only definitions, not explanations.  Indeed, Dictionary.com acknowledges the apparent randomness of this list, titling the section of its webpage, "Suspiciously strong searches."  Or maybe they just used the NSA's term for it.

I can see no particular rationale for why the trending words suddenly find themselves so popular.  The current list: breathtaking, flummoxed, crest, portent, compile, lease, and missive.  When I used to do improv comedy, we would sometimes have to generate a skit incorporating random words shouted out by the inevitably drunk audience members.  This list reminds me of that....

Hey, I know, let's see if I've lost my touch!  Let's see if I can make a sentence about current events that uses these words:

Ummm. . . .

Recent election results contain breathtaking portents for 2016, although some are flummoxed by the crest in popularity of certain politicians now granted a lease on elective office.  Missive.

Damn it!

Publication Note

Hi Sloppists.

Just to give you an update: The new power cord for my laptop (AKA, Where the magic happens!) arrived today.  By tomorrow, I'll be all charged up and ready to get back to a regular publication schedule. Consider yourselves warned.

Next Year: A Reality Show in The House of the Seven Gables

First, there was "The Following," which mangled Edgar Allan Poe.  Now this.

I suspect that "Sleepy Hollow," Fox's new action-horror program arose from a profound moment of cultural semi-literacy: "Hey, let's make a show based on that story. . . .by that Irving Washington guy. . . y'know, the one where Ichabod Crane falls asleep for two-hundred years and wakes up to fight the Headless Horseman."

Close enough.

Anyway, I've watched the show--it's not particularly terrible, but not overly good either.  In this version, Ichabod Crane is not a gangly schoolteacher, but rather a hunky (if lanky) Englishman, who switched sides in the Revolutionary War.  While battling his erstwhile redcoated comrades, Crane confronts a Hessian in a sort of Bane-mask who, after a minor decapitation, goes on to become the light-shouldered eqestrian we're all familiar with from our collective nightmares and/or Disney adaptations.  Crane himself, grievously wounded, falls unconscious, and, when next he wakes, finds himself in Sleepy Hollow in 2013.  He and a young sheriff's deputy then team up to battle the Horseman and assorted other supernatural baddies.

My question, though, is this: The show has now been on for about two months (minus a World-Series break), and Ichabod has been wandering the streets for what seems to be at least the same amount of time--but he's still wearing his Revolutionary War clothes!

  Can no one take the poor guy to Target?

Technical Difficulties

Due to completely foreseen circumstances of a feline nature, the power cord to my laptop has been irretrievably chewed. While I await the arrival of a new cord, I am confined to typing on an iPad, which I hate.  I don't hate the iPad--just typing on it. Something utterly unsatisfying about tapping on flat "keys" that don't depress normally. Someone needs to work on the haptics of the thing, is all I'm saying.

Dedication

How prolific is Stephen King? Consider the book dedication. Most authors dedicate their books to their spouses. Perhaps, if one writes a second or third book, a dedication may be made to one's parents or children, or maybe another close friend or relative.  As the books continue to appear, one may thank one's agent, editor, perhaps a favorite teacher or an admired authorial role model.  Stephen King has published so many books that his latest, Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, is dedicated to the late rocker Warren Zevon, with whom King would jam occasionally as a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders (a rock band composed of famous authors like Dave Barry and Amy Tan).

Personally, I think this is great. I figure another two or three novels (which he will probably finish by Christmas) and Stephen King will be dedicating a book to me!