What A Mess

My first job was as a cashier at the (then newly built) Wal-Mart in my hometown. I was 17 years old at the time and working the express, 20 items or less check-out when a gigantic woman got in my line. This lady had to have weighed at least 400lbs, but that’s not even the beginning of it.

As I was ringing up the customer in front of this woman, she starts talking to me. She told me that she had made a big mess in the women’s bathroom. The lady whose purchases I was checking out looked at me in utter disgust. I had no idea what to say to the giant, but it didn’t matter because she continued anyway. She said that she had tried to make it to the toilet, but she hadn’t made it and that she had had diarrhea all over the bathroom floor. She even added that SOME of it had made it in the toilet. She said “I told the person at customer service that someone else had made the mess, but it was really me.”

By this point, I had finished with the lady in front of her and that lucky woman had escaped. I tried to console her, or maybe make her stop talking by telling her that it was okay, that someone would clean it up and it wouldn’t matter who made the mess, but she continued. She said “I think some of it may have gotten on my pants.” The people behind her in line took a big step back and she goes on to say “Can you check? Can you tell me if there’s anything on my pants?” What was I supposed to do? I told her I would tell her if there was anything on her pants.

She turned around and before she even lifted the hem of her 8XL shirt, I could see the trail of brown marking her three foot long butt crack. When she pulled up her shirt, there was feces smudged all up the back of her pants. I found myself wondering if she had tried to mop up the mess with her pants before becoming overwhelmed with it and giving up. I couldn’t bring myself to say “Yeah, Fatty, you’ve got enough sh*t on your a** to fertilize all of Kansas,” so instead I said “I think I see just a little, but if you pull your shirt down, I doubt anyone will notice.”

LIES! It was everywhere! And by this time, the putrid smell of excrement was almost unbearable. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before. I don’t remember if I had to call for a price check or something, but I ended up waiting for a manager to come to my line before I was free of this woman. It was by far one of the most horrifying moments of my teenage years, and I sincerely doubt that I will EVER look at Wal-Mart bathrooms in quite the same way.