No matter how beautiful you are, it turns out your shit still stinks.

After a really outrageous Saturday night, we all staggered out of the restaurant at about 3am. I left first, almost too tired to drive - I didn't stay for a shift drink, or a smoke in the parking lot. I just couldn't. As I left, a patrol car was cruising by, and they slowed and watched me pull out, then rolled past the windows of the cafe, shining their light inside on the staff at the end of the bar.

That'll teach 'em to hang out after work.

A few hours later, the morning crew arrived to set up for breakfast. And they noticed right away that something was not quite right.

There was a smell.

An odd smell.

Was there a garbage can that hadn't been taken out? Was there a dead rat in one fo the traps? The restaurant (and I have worked in a lot of restaurants, so I know what I am talking about) is very clean. Really, really clean. The kitchen is spotless. Everything is put in the cooler at night, the entire place is scrubbed down, all trash goes out, all dishes are washed before the door is locked and the alarm is set. So there were only a few options to suss out in locating the source of the stench. Which is why it only took a few minutes for them to rule out the kitchen as the source of the smell, and expand their search.

And they struck gold.

The toilets were overflowing.

Something had happened. Something terrible and awful and bad had happened. We don't know when it happened, we're not sure if the toilets overflowed toward the end of the night and the beautiful people just kept using them, unwilling to notify us of something so distasteful, or if a toilet got backed up at some point and just kept running after we closed the doors and went home. I for one can't believe that anyone would be able to take a dump in a bar with that many people and that much noise. I have to have monastic silence, a People magazine and about 30 minutes to really get the job done.

But apparently that is just me - however it transpired, it happened. And it was bad.

However, two hours later the shop vac was rinsed and drying in the sunshine, and we had the cleanest bathrooms in town - disinfected with bleach from the floor to halfway up the wall. The toilet was scrubbed so hard the enamel got scratched. We were once again spotlessly clean.

4 hours later, the owner of the store next door came in. Turns out, our bathrooms weren't the only area of the building affected by the hazmat conditions.

Thank god that shop vac has wheels.