Mark Your Calendars

You could be forgiven for missing it. It is easily overlooked, sandwiched as it is between the heady celebrations of Flag Day and the frenzy of excitement that is Fathers Day here in the World's 2nd greatest country. I almost missed it and if it were not for my boss having to cancel a speaking engagement at some wanky entrepreneurship seminar today because of it, I definitely would not have known until it was too late.

Next year, I will be ready for it. What the fuck is it, I hear you scream. Did we miss some major annual event? Are we in trouble with a family member for failing to send a card and token good wishes?

Not exactly, not unless you belong to a family of janitorial technicians, cleaning ladies, scrubbers, moppers or lavatory attendants. Today is Justice For Janitors Day. Yes.

Now I'm not about to belittle janitors or demean them or the work they do in any way. I will leave that for Knudsen. I agree that the work they do is super important and vital to the fabric of society and essential to the productivity of business and industry. Without them we are fucked. Every morning I go into my office and after a quick check to make sure they haven't stolen anything, I make sure that I take a moment to be grateful that they have emptied my bin and vacuumed the carpet. For if it were not for them, nameless and faceless to me though they are, I would have to do it myself. Being whiter than they, that just would not do and if my employees were to see me emptying my own bin it would not lend me much credibility in their eyes. So yes, I am thankful for the janitors.

Do I think they deserve their own day of justice? I'm not so sure. Where will all this end? Who gets a day of justice next? Who decides? Will Hallmark attempt to cash in on these "Justice Days"?

Don't Fuck With No Mild
Mannered Janitors

All I know is this. Stopping traffic on Wilshire Boulevard in the middle of the day is hardly likely to endear their cause to any non-janitors who happen to get stuck in the resulting traffic nightmare. Surely there is a better way to bring attention to the cause like maybe only emptying half a bin while leaving the rotting banana skins, apple cores and sour yogurt containers in the office for days on end. Wouldn't that raise just as many eyebrows? How about not replacing tired urinal cakes? The smell, especially during summer might cause questions to be asked.

I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. That is your job. What I do know is that anyone who is prepared to work, especially doing the jobs that many of us do not want or are lucky enough not to need badly enough to do them ourselves, should receive a decent livable wage and health benefits for doing it. I know it's a capitalist society but I also know how much the agencies charge companies for their services and that the percentage that is actually paid to the janitors is a pittance. It's a very competitive field, cut throat in fact but the owners still manage to do very well.

In my personal opinion, anyone who is able, let alone willing to scrub the skidmarks off the porcelain after I have been in the disabled stall deserves at least $10 for the hour it will most likely take them to get it clean.

What Am I Bid?

I saw that the brown cloak worn by Alec Guinness as Obi Wank-Enobi in Star Wars just sold at auction in London for $104,000. It was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder, as were many other items of clothing worn at one time by celebrities in various movie roles. A tuxedo, worn by James Bond, a dress, worn by Madonna in Evita, and some other less memorable items all sold for ridiculous amounts of money. These kind of auctions, usually at least one a year, are always popular and usually offer the most bizarre items for sale to the saddest of high bidders. A friend of Mrs. Waring once owned a felt hat worn by a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, knowing what I know about this person, I shudder to think what depths of depravity he may have sunk to while wearing it.

Anyway, cash has been a bit tight in the Waring household these past few weeks and I am seriously contemplating offering for auction one of my prized possessions.

I have so far resisted the lure of eBay, preferring instead to keep hold of said item as a nest egg for some security in the future, a college education perhaps for the younger Waring, or to finance an expensive crack addiction, or maybe even a nubile young “housemaid” when the wife finally wises up and leaves me. What is this golden ticket, you ask? What could you possibly have that would be worth so much? Is it a family heirloom? Could it be property in a prime location? Is it the secret to eternal youth or a perpetual motion machine? No, it is none of the above. It is Marlon Brando’s underpants.

Yes, I own a pair of Mr. Brando’s underpants. Not just any pair, but his favourite pair, his lucky pair. Brando wore these in many of his most famous movies. The Cat From Outer Space, Herbie Goes Bananas and most notably Apocalypse Now! In fact, they are complete with shit stains due to a rather loud explosion on the set of Apocalypse Now! after which Brando discarded them outside of his trailer where they were later found by a janitor with a wayward eye for celebrity cast offs. How they came into my possession, I cannot say, but if they were stolen at any time in the last 3 years I had nothing to do with it. The pair of 5XL Fruit of the Loom boxer shorts are not in the best of condition, mostly due to the skidmarks and some shredding of the gusset, but are priceless to collectors of celebrity under garments and should fetch a pretty penny if sold in the right place at the right time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I start the bidding at $1.75……do I hear $2?

It was BBQ for lunch on the set that day