At college, I share a bathroom with 50 other men. Needless to say, it is not exactly the cleanest facility. I shower in flip-flops, am selective about which toilet to use, and occasionally have to walk around the remnants of the weekend's festivities. Many of my friends are horrified when they hear with how many people I have to share a bathroom. It could be worse though.
The other day I had the job of portering during my morning shift. The Porter sits outside in the Andre House parking lot and receives any donations that arrive, ensures that only legal activities are occurring (no, I have not had to play narcotics officer yet), and talks to the guests. Towards the end of my shift, I was surprised at how few guests were still in the parking lot. I checked outside the gate and found most of the guests had moved onto the sidewalk, where squares are painted that facilitate the process of lining up guests for services. It was 11:45, but the guests were already lined up to get a shower at 1. They were waiting over an hour in Phoenix's summertime heat to get a shower.
That's not all. They are limited to ten minutes to shower, and have a stranger knock on their stall door to alert them to the time. Depending on their position in line, a number of other homeless (read: dirty) people shower before them, with only a quick mop job of bleach water on the floor between each person. To sum it up: to get a shower, you wait over an hour outside for ten minutes in a stall used by stranger and cleaned by amateurs. I now appreciate my dorm showers a bit more.
In other news:
I received a lesson in bra sizes when I worked the Clothing Closet yesterday.
The other summer intern who is here got proposed to yesterday by a guest. The guest got down on one knee with a juice bottle cap and asked to join her in "mattress money." We agreed he had probably forgotten his meds that morning.
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