A lot of people have come into our store to crap on the floors this year:

A middle-aged woman came into our store a year ago, walking with a purpose. Her face showed intense discomfort as she approached the service desk.
'Where is your bathroom, please?' she asked quickly, her voice sinking lower by octaves.

'Just around the corner!' is what the helpful employee had been about to say, pointing in the general direction, but all that was said was, 'Just around the...' and the friendly smile turned to horror.

Abject horror.

As the woman walked away towards her destination, the intensity in her face became desperation, until she disappeared behind the door marked 'Ladies.'

Our plucky employee, eyes still stinging from opening so wide, shakily reached towards her walkie-talkie; somebody had to warn the store , she thought, and this was her hour.

Her voice quivered with fear as she pressed the talk button and, barely above a whisper, said, 'Clean up. Clean up to Guest Services. Clean up to the front entrance. Clean up to the women's restroom.'

The attendants approached with caution, because they could smell it before they saw it. As they rounded the aisles, paper towels and sanitizer bottles in hand, their fears were confirmed. From the front entrance of the store to the guest service counter and looping around to the restrooms, following the path of the woman, were several small trails and mounds of human waste.

They leaped into action. Wet floor signs sprung up as if from nowhere, sanitary gloves were donned with the skilled knowledge of a surgeon.

Backup was requested.

But not a sound came from the women's restroom. Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty. Employees would venture boldly inside to ask if anyone needed help. They would return, broken, speaking of the horrors that awaited those foolish enough to do the same.

After nearly half an hour, waiting and hoping, the door opened and she emerged. The swing of the door brought smells which promised chaos and death to the poor women unlucky enough to be deemed 'The Cleansers.' The woman made no eye contact, and her face was a mask; neutral, unspoken. She gathered her skirts about her and made for the door, where she disappeared into the mid-day breeze, never to be seen again.

And those men who saw her leave that day all say the same thing: That no woman had forearms that large, or legs that muscular and defined. No real woman's hair came up and showed netting and false colors beneath it, a wig of lies. No true female had an Adam's Apple so pronounced, nor a voice so deep.

Indeed, it was the sound opinion of all who bore witness to this harrowing tale that the woman who destroyed the serenity of the entry-way that fateful afternoon had not been a woman at all. She was a he. A transvestite.

A weirdo transvestite.

Weeks later, the call goes up over the walkies: Clean up to Grocery. Clean up to Pets. Clean up to Health and Beauty. Clean up to the Checklanes. Those of us who had weathered that fateful day, whose scars were still raw with rememberance, braced ourselves and responded.

It was as we had feared.

We grimaced and got to work. This was our lot in life- to clean up the hazards of retail that threatened to destroy our profits and sales forecasts; to remove the horrors not meant for our customers. Mutterings of, 'They don't pay me enough for this,' could be heard throughout the store. And those whispers and complaints were right- they did not, could not pay us enough for this.

It was a dirty job. But, as they say...

The evidence came forth minutes later when one of our cart attendants found a motorized cart in the parking lot with a pool of filth in its seat, overflowing onto the side, then the wheels, then the ground.

The tale of how it was cleaned is not one for the weak of heart, and it shall not be recounted here. But there were tears that day, gentle readers, and they were wept most bitterly.

The months passed, and while the scars were still strong, the pain of the memories faded away. Stories became legend, and our lives, somehow, went on.

Until a day, one week ago, when one of us came upon a re-sealed box, on the floor in the infant department.

Its contents were sealed from sight, but not from smell. The scent wafted through the air, telling its wretched tale to all foolish enough to wander into its domain. Many fell to this ill breeze, having neither the constitution nor the desire to defeat it. Until...

A hero arose. Walking deftly to the box, he took it quickly in his gloved hands, fearlessly opening its hideous maw.

Inside, there was a child's toilet training seat, befouled by its intended demographic. Besides the matter, however, another sight met our hero's eyes- an opened package of wipes, which had been used for its purpose as well. 'How,' he wondered, 'does a person have enough time to open this box, the wipe package, the plastic clamshell around the training seat, and fill it to the brim, but not have enough time to reach the restroom? And how do we never catch these fiends in the act?'

He knew the answers would have to wait; that there may, in fact, never be answers to these burning missives.

He moved quickly to the night manager's location, and in a voice that brooked no argument, declared, 'We need to go to the trash compactor. Now.'

They hurried to the backroom and hurled the foul thing into the depths, where it lay with its kin until the day it would be taken away forever. And he went away, seeking neither praise nor compensation. He was simply doing his job.

And so I did today, as well. I didn't seek praise or thanks for cleaning the stains we found at the front lanes. I simply grabbed some gloves, sprayed some sanitizer, said a prayer, and got to work.

I would have only come up empty-handed if I had tried for sympathy. We are retail workers.

And we've seen it all.