The Ugly Side of the Sacrament

Bet you didn't think there was one did ya? Neither did I until this morning.

It's my ward's month to clean the church. I signed up to help for today. After being slightly delayed this morning I showed up about fifteen minutes late. I'm still pretty new to my ward and so I didn't know the young man standing in front of the custodial closet door who after quickly scanning the list posted on the door gave me one of the jobs still left. He asked me clean the sacrament preparation room and wipe out all the sacrament trays.

I was kind of excited. I had never been in that room before. I knew it wasn't going to be some ornate luxurious room but just the fact that I had never seen one gave the job an air of mystery and excitement. Just to dispel any romantic notions YOU might have about the room it's little with a counter and a sink and some shelves.

Immediately after registering what the room look liked, my sense of smell was accosted. It stunk. Bad.

Due to the small proportions of the room it didn't take me long to identify the cause of the smell. In the corner was a tall trash can three quarters of the way full with discarded sacrament cups and (brace yourself) bits of wet, moldy, black and blue, fuzzy bread. It was so gross.

Because of the offensive smell I decided I would start with taking the garbage out. I pulled on the bag and it was HEAVY. I got it high enough to see that rank, stinky water was dripping from the bottom of the bag. And as soon as I disturbed the fetid mess the stink increased ten times.

I pulled my shirt over my nose and pulled the trash can onto the stand to get it out of the tiny room. I wiped trays down, counter and sink and it was about this time my roommate Rachelle comes by having finished her job and asks what smells so bad. I show her and her only response is "Boys." She ran to grab two trash bags, one to double up the dripping nasty one and one as a replacement.

When she comes back, shirts over our noses, we double bag that sucker and she hurries away to the dumpster with it. Leaving me with the trash can that still has a quarter inch of stinky water, pieces of beyond recognizable bread and a few tiny plastic cups floating in the bottom. The stink is still overwhelming. I thought about just tossing the can and letting someone in charge know that the sacrament prep room needed a new one. But I remembered that usually the custodial closets have tallish sinks (for lack of a better word) with drains on the floor and faucets with a short hose on them. I dragged the can in there and started rinsing it out. I got the can pretty clean but the bits of "bread" and cups were caught in the drain. So I put on a latex glove and right as I'm about to fish the stuff out the last of the cleaning party shows up at the closet, including the young man who assigned me the job.

"What is that?" he asks disgustedly.

"This is what was in the bottom of the garbage can in the sacrament preparation room." I reply.

Now here comes the worst part of the story. This guy then proceeds to say, like he's patting himself on the back, that that's why he gave that job to a woman. Because we're so "detail oriented" and men clean that room up all the time and miss stuff like that. What?! Taking out the stinking, moldy, mildewy trash that has been neglected for months and months is detail oriented?! And only the sensitivity and discerning eye of a woman could catch such a subtle offense. He would have been better off complimenting ME and not generalizing my sex as the world's best man's trash taker outers. Maybe I'm overreacting...

Anyway...

The second worst part about cleaning up that room was wiping old lipstick off of the bottom of the water trays. There's something you never think about.

Happy Sabbath tomorrow!