Sputterpub's Blog

She didn’t see Adam till the end of lunch. Her parents had opted for the buffet instead of the sit-down dining room, which suited salad-loving Sarah, and she was excusing herself from their table when she saw Adam at the beverage dispenser. She felt daring; she walked up to him and murmured something about an afternoon nap. He glanced at her with a look that cycled from surprise to glee. “Of course,” he nodded.

He had to finish his laundry first. That should have shot the mood or at least provoked an agreement to meet a little later, but it was like they’d found one another by accident, latched on in an eddy, and neither was willing to let go. Each was amused, beguiled, aboard. They folded his stretched white briefs and his thin white undershirts together.

So began the strangest happiest affair either ever had. Passengers assumed they were an established couple. They often walked around the Promenade Deck together, and they were compatibly sociable. After each evening’s show they went to the bar above the bridge, where Adam sat at the piano and played whatever the drinking passengers requested. Sarah drank countless cups of ship’s coffee. She didn’t mind the time at all. That was unusual for her, but she felt easy. She enjoyed the music and waited for Adam to close the piano, shake down his unbuttoned white cuffs, say his goodnights and walk her out of there, hand confidently cupped under her elbow, to his cabin and good-humored affection.

Neither was bothered about the time spent with others – in fact they basked in the social approval, their eyes and smiles meeting across the conversation with whichever passengers accosted them – but they giggled like kids out of school when they got alone. And they agreed that the nights were too precious to waste in sleep, so they kept drinking coffee and talking. They traded nightmares.

Both of them had recurring dreams about architecture. These weren’t horrific, but they were disturbing enough to be described. Adam thought his was triggered by his recent move. After a lifetime in Manhattan he had tried to be a husband and father in a New Jersey suburb. He bought a car and even got somewhat comfortable driving it, before he acquired the divorce. And since then, wanting to be close to his daughter, he had remained in the suburban neighborhood. He hated the place. He was starting to consider a move back to the city. He was trying to justify an arrangement where he’d only be able to see Ellen on some weekend afternoons. His recurring dream had him lost in the floorplan of a ranch house in his despicable neighborhood, under extreme pressure to find his way out (and his jacket) in order to make it to an important gig. He interpreted it as combining geographical incompatibility with a dose of performance anxiety. He noticed that the closer he got to deciding to return to a small space in the big city, the more creative his brain became. He was finally composing again, late nights on this very trip, and he hoped that signified a return to some better version of his former self.

Sarah’s dream was more recurrent. She been having it as long as she could remember. Every time it played it seemed familiar and ancient.

It was set in a house. She could have drawn the floorplan, she’d been there so often. It was built on a slope and was taller at its back end than its front. The property was dotted with tall deciduous trees: birch or maybe aspen.

The dream always had her moving through the house for some natural reason. And it always ended with her discovery of the unused room. Off the kitchen – an interior space with no windows. Sarah’s progress through the house seemed to spiral inward like a nautilus shell, to the forgotten room. She always experienced a moment of recognition as she entered it (“Oh yeah, this place”), and then the anxiety started (“This time I won’t forget. How how how shall I use this room?”) as the dream ended.

That was serious talk for Adam and Sarah. Most of the time they were telling jokes or stories. And always they were touching.

Adam sold recordings of himself playing and of course he gave Sarah one the night before the cruise ended. He refused to sign it (“What would I write? best wishes?” he joked with a significant look). He insisted, to Sarah and her parents, that he would see them all soon.

It was odd how Sarah went from well-adjusted appreciative six-day lover to passionate wreck, but that’s what happened. She was okay when she said goodnight to Adam alone for the last time, at 4:30 that final morning. Instead of sleeping a few hours, she turned from that embrace and assumed a prone position diagonally on her narrow bed, where she began writing an erotic sonnet that she viewed as the lyrics to whatever melody Adam was then composing. Every night when he’d left her it was to work in his lined composition book, but only on that last one did she mimic him.

She was okay then, but at disembarkation time she surprised herself, startled her parents, and alarmed Adam. She broke down saying goodbye to him. Her face swelled, her eyes filled, her voice choked. The emotions were sudden and uncontrollable. She managed to board the bus and hunker up against a window. She continued quietly crying all the way from the dock to downtown Anchorage.

Her sobs upset him. He tried to put them out of his mind but her grief seemed too extreme to disregard. He called her once, from San Juan while working on a Puerto Rican run, but the connection was bad and half of their sentences were garbled. And although he had given her his P.O. box and invited whatever, the love poems she sent didn’t charm him.

Adam had never been attracted to someone like Sarah before. He gravitated toward women who resembled his ex: tall dancer types with blonde hair and cool personalities. Sarah was a brunette, around five foot six, cocky and stocky.

It was the first day of a week-long Alaska cruise, the first cruise of four in a row on which he’d be the pianist, and Adam was old enough at 38 to be serious about a paying job. So he had no intention of starting a relationship when he stepped up to the passenger on the Promenade Deck and asked her what she was listening to in those earpieces that she wore.

“Don Henley,” she answered, and Adam didn’t know who that was, but she offered an earbud and he listened to a few bars. They smiled at one another and began an easy conversation.

That led to a “theatre” date. Sarah had never even looked at a big guy like Adam that way, and she’d never dated a Jewish man, but she said yes when he explained that as a ship’s performer, he was obligated to attend all the evening shows. They arranged to meet after dinner.

Then she found her parents at the back of the ship. Her father was taking pictures of the diminishing dock while her mother perused the schedule of activities. As far as Sarah could recall she’d never traveled alone with her folks. But she was 41, not long divorced and raising two kids without help; her parents decided she could use a treat. And they had come to feel guilty about cutting her off 20 years earlier, after they asked and she answered about the premarital sexual activity, so it was understood like a private joke with a big kernel of truth that the trip was a payback of sorts.

She was just starting to describe her encounter with Adam when he approached. She introduced them and was charmed by his friendly manner. He was about six foot six and overweight. He had a full head of thick dark hair and regular features that would be handsome if he lost some of the fat. It was obvious that he wasn’t an active man; his stride was ungainly and his body was pudgy. But he had a boyish open way about him that pleased them. He even tried to switch his dinner table to theirs but without success. It was the ship’s custom to seat an upper level crew member or entertainer at each passenger table, and theirs already had the ship’s doctor, and he was unwilling to trade places.

So they ate separately, but Adam found Sarah and her parents as soon as they left the dining room. The four took seats together in the theatre.

The show was mediocre. Afterwards Adam and Sarah said goodnight to her parents, and he led her to a lounge. Sarah ordered a cocktail and when Adam requested sweet white wine she knew he wasn’t a drinker. Their conversation continued with no awkwardness and Sarah, who’d always before felt invaded if a man moved in too close too soon, noted that she didn’t mind how Adam pulled his face toward hers when he made statements. She was charmed when he leaned in and kissed her. She was surprised at the immediacy and depth of her response. It had been a long time.

They kept talking. His father made a living as a character actor, and Adam had been raised in New York city hotels. He was the only man Sarah ever met who had been to the Catskills, let alone worked there. He knew Henny Youngman, and he told Henny Youngman jokes. He was also the only man she’d ever been with who had patronized prostitutes.

When Adam offered to show Sarah his cabin in the passenger-forbidden crew area, she wanted to see it. She was stuck in a single interior room herself (her parents paid, but not much), so she appreciated his portholes and the way the two beds made a corner arrangement. She didn’t expect to get naked but there was something so natural about the way Adam removed her clothes that she didn’t stop him.

It was odd for him too. He was raw from his divorce, still in shock about his move from his New York apartment to the New Jersey ranch house, to driving, to parenting with Sharon their adopted six-year old daughter. He had worked on cruise ships but he’d never been on a cold tour. Always before he had been in tropical temperatures, where he didn’t feel attractive. He knew he looked like everybody’s weird cousin when he tried to wear shorts or swim trunks. But this was different.

They stayed in Adam’s cabin that first night till 2 a.m. They joked and laughed and kissed deeply. They caressed and kissed widely. They fucked and liked it, but that was off. Sarah was insufficiently wet. Adam’s thrust hurt her. She even bled a little. No alarm bells rang. Just laughter.

Sarah didn’t sleep much that night. Her windowless cabin was like a sensory deprivation tank, so sleep should have been easy to achieve, but she was a little bewildered and a lot bemused by the speed and certainty with which she had entered this affair.

She felt completely secure. Comfortably temporary. Strangely trustful. Amid tales of New York whores and accommodating chambermaids, amid spots of blood in vaginal discharge, the subject of condoms never arose. And neither Adam nor Sarah would characterize themselves as stupid or provincial or careless or suicidal.

They’d done it and it had been a bit painful and then they’d done it some more. All the while watching each other’s face and kissing each other’s mouth and filling each other’s ears with bad jokes. They’d had a great time.

She found her parents in deck chairs outside. She fetched mugs of coffee for her father and herself, and she perched on the side of an adjacent chaise while they told her about their sleep and their breakfast. They had papers in front of them and were contemplating a shore excursion for the next day. Sarah acted interested and agreeable. She felt rested and happy.

Still and all, most users have been making sure that the toilet flushes. Most of us put up with the situation. But at least a couple of times a day someone exits the ladies’ room without completing the flush, leaving mellow yellow or lively pink or even a cloud of bad brown in the bowl.

Apparently this is just too annoying for Cindy. Obviously she hates it. She put up a hand-lettered sign on the tile wall above the sink, with her suggestions for how to use the balky toilet. All that did was trigger a passive-aggressive response in a few users, because the incidence of incomplete flushing increased after Cindy posted.

She didn’t give up. When that woman hates, she does it thoroughly. Yesterday the polished version of her message went up, on the wall next to the sink mirror and also on the back of each cubicle door, where the sitter must either see it or take care to hang a jacket over it. The sign is now red-lettered. The pitch must be at least 40. The message is centered:

1. Maintain pressure on the toilet flush lever for at least 60 seconds.
2. Make sure that the contents in the toilet bowl have been completely flushed.
3. Exit the bathroom.

What a turd. At least two of us were set to confront Cindy about it. Sixty seconds?! On what planet? Doesn’t the moron know how long a minute can be? Has she never waited on a microwave? And “exit the bathroom”? Yeah it’s true that “make sure the toilet is completely flushed” is too short a message to leave, but why is she impelled to leave the message at all? Does she actually think the non-flusher will read it and think “Oh my! I never realized I was leaving my waste for another to see and eliminate! I’m so glad it was pointed out to me. I’ll mend my ways immediately. I wish there were some way for me to thank my anonymous Good Samaritan!”

I know it seems childish, but I couldn’t resist using the bad flusher more often, and leaving it in its natural incomplete state. I’m not the only one who has lately been allowing extra paper to remain on the counter. We all know someone who has taken to hanging a seat protector halfway in the bowl of Cindy’s favorite toilet, whenever she can.

Cindy needs to look to her own hygiene. One of these days one of us is going to talk to her about cigarette disposal. She’s fairly conscientious about not littering in general, but the woman has a habit of dropping her filtered butt on the sidewalk or in the gutter and then (usually) stepping on it. Fire danger aside (some seasons), it’s no more acceptable than emptying a car ashtray onto the street.

There oughta be a sign…

(Here’s the URL for the 2012 paper towel TED talk. Of course the dude’s from Oregon…http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_smith_how_to_use_a_paper_towel?language=en)

Maybe there’s unspoken agreement to retain her because she’s the coworker everyone loves to despise. There’s always going to be one, and we’re all so comfortable having Cindy fill the position. And she’s the lowest paid of us – it’s not costing the firm much.

But we’re not sure how much more we can take. Lately Cindy has gotten worse. It was bad enough when she started taking offense at certain language. That started a few weeks ago, when she expressed herself in forceful yet whiny complaint. Now Fiona feels self-conscious whenever she catches herself saying “okey dokey” and Susie has absolutely given up trying to “share” anything with us when Cindy’s around.

But the worst is her recent campaign about the ladies’ room. That’s the issue that has led to signs.

Cindy’s curiosity about the middle stall seemed innocuous. Most of us agreed with her that it must take some sort of extrovert to walk into an empty three-stall facility and choose the middle unit. It isn’t any bigger than the others and it doesn’t give you a tile wall to lean your stuff against. All it can provide is mandatory proximity if someone else walks into the bathroom before you’re done. There must be a term for that sort of gregariousness…

And her comments about some users’ bowel habits were clearly irrelevant and off base. Just because Cindy can’t relax enough to enjoy a shit in a public facility doesn’t dictate the comfort or urges of others. And face it; most of us use the office bathroom more than any other. It isn’t exactly public. Just shared. That’s what makes it seem strange when one hears the pull-at-an-angle whisk of a paper seat protector leaving the wall dispenser in an adjacent cubicle – we’re 16 floors up – does the woman next door seriously believe one of us is diseased? It’s even worse when you lower your naked thighs confidently upon the split seat and encounter wetness; that feels like actual betrayal. But it isn’t particularly useful to hear Cindy’s repeated rants about it. She’ll even stagger away from you after that complaint, stiff-kneed and swatting a bit at the back of her thigh as if it were still urine-spattered.

She hung the first signs in the ladies’ room after she saw the video about wasted paper towels. Some TED talker provided (impractical) lessons about how to wipe down the world with one folded sheet of paper and Cindy decided Adrienne needed to learn a lesson. Cindy is too passive-aggressive to talk to Adrienne (and Adrienne’s paper towel use isn’t just about herself anyway; we’ve all walked in on her mopping up the sink counters, and I’m sure some of us have dry bags as a result of her tidiness).

Everyone knows that the far stall sometimes has a flushing issue. We get the building engineer in about once a month and he repairs it for awhile, but that toilet usually doesn’t completely flush unless you hold the lever down. We agree it’s obnoxious, because like any public facility ours doesn’t have bowl covers, so there’s no way to avoid breathing over-the-flush air the whole time you have to stand there with your foot on the lever while the water is swirling in the bowl, and we’ve all read somewhere that toilet air is really unhealthy, and some of us have even had lingering intestinal issues until we learned to put our toothbrushes in cupboards or store them in protective cleaners.

The consensus around the office about Cindy is that she’s like a retriever: sweet but dumb. Some of us are questioning that lately. We agree she’s not the brightest bulb on our string, but she’s also not very nice.

Cindy is the most hateful person we know. Not that she acts rudely to others; she is literally full of hate. She hates welfare even though she receives some. She hates bikes on BART even though she has never personally been inconvenienced or insulted by the presence of one. She hates yellow mustard and people who don’t speak English well, and all sorts of neighborhoods in which she’s never set a foot.

She even hates Clinique. She used their products till about a year ago, and now she blames her face wrinkles on the company. She will not attribute the lines to her sunbathing mania or the chain smoking; she argues that since her mother tanned and smoked, and she takes after her mother, the lines around her 45 year-old eyes and mouth must be from cosmetics.

Mostly she is boring. Cindy is so inarticulate that even the quickest of us have difficulty figuring out the point of her conversation, and when we do get it, it’s usually really old news or a fundamentalist opinion, or maybe eye-glassing tears over an Internet animal video. She’s a sucker for an elephant flick.

There are lots of tears. She cries easily. It’s impossible to say anything negative to her without causing her tear ducts to dilate and spill. The woman is naturally fair so her cheeks and lids blush as the glisten increases, and it doesn’t even matter if you go in prepared with “Now Cindy, you’re not going to like what I’m about to say…” – no matter what you do, she will cry and her tears will distract you both.

We often wonder how she keeps the job. She can’t seem to maintain focus so she doesn’t even file correctly. If you give her two items to mail there’s a good chance she’ll confuse the envelopes. And it’s not like she’s not old enough to be an age discrimination threat. She’s white and was raised middle class. She may be ignorant but she has high school and college degrees.

She’s not bad looking. She isn’t fat, although she’s self-conscious about her appearance and always wears an oversized shirt or blanket-like wrap so no one knows the exact shape of her torso. She tends to hold her hand before her mouth when she talks, as if she were chewing something, and that makes us notice her bitten fingernails. Her features are okay and she gets her hair cut and colored regularly.

Cindy says she needs an eye job (she’s right – her upper lids sag like they’re 20 years older than she is). She talks about her baggy eyes regularly, and she has suggested surgical double dates (not!) with several of us. So nobody in the office understood her recent dismay when her mother offered to pay for the blepharoplasty as a birthday gift. But Cindy sobbed with agony. She said her mom was clearly giving her a message about how bad she looks. Go figure.