Day 42: Stepping out of my comfort zone

     I consider myself a pretty clean person. I shower daily, I brush my teeth and I wash my hands after I pee. I don't think that I'm a germaphobe or anything, I'm just into sanitation. Thats why yesterday, while I was cleaning the womens restroom at my second job, I had to step out of my comfort zone and take one for the team. Now, I don't want to go into detail about what all went down, but it was bad. It involved me holding my breath while changing out the trash bags in a room seeping with an abominable stench and picking up and disposing two used tampons. The stinky room was bad, but not that bad in comparison. There are these little trash cans on the walls of the stalls in the girls bathroom. They are for the disposal of feminine things and they are supposed to have little trash bags lined around them so that they poor guy (me) that has to clean them can do so without direct contact. I was designated to pick up the red perpetrator cause I was the only one out of my co-workers that had worn gloves to bathroom duty, I was not siked. Thats what I get for being clean and cautious, I get picked. But someone had to do it, and that someone...was me. I unrolled several spins of toilet paper to use as an extra-just-in-case-barrier and I hesitantly reached into the mini trash can. My coworkers watched in amusement as I failed to grab it on my first attempt. I didn't think that I could pull myself to try again, but somehow I did. I reached in (this time with even more toilet paper protection) and pinched the tampon with my thumb and pointer finger. I lifted it out and, as if I was handling highly explosive plutonium, carefully walked it towards the trash bag. I did it, and it was gross, but at least I did it. It was almost as bad as that time the septic tank in the basement of that building overflowed and I had to spend my shift squeegeeing and mopping up a basement flooded with human waste. That was a terrible, terrible time. Point of the challenge, I (yet again) overcame my fear of all things gross, and (more importantly) I don't get paid enough.