Dear Office Cleaner,You and I have never spoken. In fact, as far as I’m aware, we’ve never even laid eyes upon each other. What we have could barely be called a relationship; I would describe it more as an understanding. I come in during the day and arrange words in sentences and paragraphs, and you pop in for a couple of hours in the evening to empty bins, disinfect surfaces, vacuum the carpet and clean the vomit off Peter File’s keyboard. Until quite recently, I’ve been more than satisfied with this arrangement. I receive very few flea bites at work, and these days I only put one layer of toilet paper on the seat – quite a step forward for a sufferer of mild obsessive compulsive disorder. But then, well…
YOU THREW OUT MY WATER BOTTLE.
I’m dead against capital letters unless they’re at the beginning of a sentence or a pronoun, so yes, I was actually yelling at you there. I never yell at people, not even in letters like this when I know they can’t hit me in the head. I’m making an exception this time, and not just because our shifts don’t overlap. Seriously, why now? That bottle has been on my desk for months, in the same position too – wedged between my perpetually empty in-tray and my well worn copies of Mentally Unstable Firearm Lover’s Monthly. Okay, that’s a lie, I don’t really like guns. But it has been in the same spot on my desk for quite a while.
I like to consider myself as being somewhat eco-friendly. Not very, mind you – I think air travel is great, and I adore steak. Also, hardcore environmentalists appeal to me about as much as members of the BNP. They’re both inflexible extremists, it’s just that some of them like tofu and electric cars, and the others like people going back to where they came from. Anyway, the point is that I hardly ever buy bottled water. I read somewhere that it takes about three bottles of water to produce one bottle of water. Obscene, I’m sure you’ll agree. So when I do buy a bottle, I keep it for as long as possible, generally until it starts to smell a bit funny and degrade to the point where bits of stuff are floating in the water every time I refill it.
I love water. It quenches thirsts, partly prevents hangovers if you drink enough of it, and it’s one of the essential ingredients in a wet t-shirt competition. Most of the planet is covered by water, and maybe more if those bloody inconsiderate steak lovers and air travel enthusiasts keep it up. Apart from a few bones and some arguably vital organs, humans are more or less made entirely of water too. You can do without steak for almost a fortnight, but deny a man water and he’ll last about as long as a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The editor told me not to bother writing this letter to you. He said, “Eoinín, chances are this janitor chap is nothing more than an uncouth, illiterate, Fosters-sodden Australian backpacker, vacuuming and shagging his way around Europe, earning just enough of a pittance to fund his next Contiki tour binge drinking session, leaving nothing more than defiled fountains and syphilis-ridden Essex girls in his uncultured wake. Oh, and your water bottle.” I wasn’t deterred, though. I was still confident that I could connect with you on a human level, even if you were Australian. I knew that even if water wasn’t as important to you as say, koala steaks (which I’ve heard are delicious and I would love to try), you would respect my love of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, all parts delicious.
So as you can see, I have brought in a new water bottle. It is just to the left of this carefully written plea for professional restraint and mutual respect. You don’t need to clean it. You need not do anything with it or to it. Just let it be what it is – a thoroughly effective vessel for the transportation of water from the tap to my stomach. If, however, you choose to ignore my heartfelt plea and violently hurl it into the bin while cackling evilly to yourself, well…let’s be honest, I’m too afraid of confrontation to do anything other than write another letter. But I’ll be pretty pissed off. So just leave it alone, okay?
Yours sincerely,
Eoinín McAlpine
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