1 BLOOD IN THE BATHROOM

Fall, 2019. Date unknown because I'm terrible with keeping time.

It was morning, I usually or 7am-3pm. Only I and the shift manager are working until around 9am or 11pm, depending on the day and how busy the store manager believes the day will be. (Which was mostly wrong.) At this time, a white and very sassy manager was assigned. Call her Sapphire, she usually worked night shift and at the time was about 7-8 months pregnant. She had a natural bossy attitude, snappy and seemingly sarcastic when being nice. At first I was intimidated by her, but through time I got use to her tone and found that over time you'd see she was actually a very nice person, and her tone was due to personal protection from her upbringing. But that doesn't come across at first meeting.

Morning shift was the best for me, because I was good at setting things up for the whole day. I was the "auxiliary" person: maintaining the building, unloading the truck once a week and stocking, cleaning the storage and parking lot. Inside, my duties every morning was: clean the shake machine—taking the good shake out in a bucket and put in the fridge, clean the tank with warm water, every two days we break down the machine to clean the parts and the shake tube itself, then put it together and rinse with sanitizer for about ten minutes, and then rinse out the sanitizer and put the shake back in and add new shake mix. Make sweet and unsweetened tea. Replace all the trash, clean the grills, stock the fridges in the kitchen, rotate the freezer bringing all the food to the front (so the new goods from the truck would go in the back and the "old" will be taken) and make it "rush ready"—unpacking the frozen goods and taking the boxes so employees didn't have to rip open the boxes and leave them in there. I'd then fold the boxes and grab any other empty boxes and the trash and take it out. Then I'd return and make fruit smoothie bags and smoothie cups.

All plus work drive thru AND front counter AND make orders (including cooking breakfast). Depending on which manager is working, I'd either do half of the above while working front counter and drive thru and making orders, or I would be during every single thing up there while working front counter and drive thru and making orders. Every Thursday I'd do everything above while preparing for the truck to come and unload. While I'm stocking I still have front counter duties and sometimes making food.

Thankfully, it wasn't Thursday and Sapphire was working! Though she was pregnant and could lift heavy things, she volunteered to do help do stuff like cleaning and the kitchen. We had many good discussions being just us too in the store, and during morning we usually didn't get too busy until around 9am, which is when another employee comes in (though usually not on time depending on who it is). At this time, it was new person still in training. Sapphire decided to train her on drive thru and ill work front counter.

As a front counter person, your duties was maintaining front counter, the dining room, and bathrooms. If the kitchen needs help, turn around and help. I had went to stock the bathrooms, and I won't lie I may have taken my sweet time doing so since it wasn't busy. A lady had came in, and that got me back into work mode. I finished replacing the paper and stepped out the stall crossing by her.I could tell she was in distress, her eyes were white and she was holding herself. I didn't have time to take a good look, but I felt something was wrong.

About 10-15 minutes passed, and a rush had begun. A rush is went multiple customers come at once and its battle mode to get the food out in less than 5 minutes. I was taking orders in the front, when two ladies I had taken care off reappeared in distress. They claimed the girls bathroom looked like a "murder" scene with blood everywhere. Naturally, sapphire and I thought they were exaggerating. Sapphire told me to check it out after we get the orders out. That response seemed to agitate them. I tried to tell sapphire that maybe I should check it out, but she told me to wait. As I made food, they stared at me complaining that I should do something. I finally convinced Sapphire to let me take a peak. She agreed and told me to hurry. I did so and—

Have you ever seen Daddy's Daycare featuring Eddie Murphy? Do you remember the scene where he went to check on the bathroom and ended up in complete shock about how one kid made THIS amount of mess? That was me in that moment.

As soon as I stepped in the smell of fresh blood knocked me back a few steps. Thankful too, or I would have stepped on some blood on the floor. I mean, the floor, the sink, the paper towels, the trash can, but the stalls were squeaky clean as I left them. I reported back to my manager and she told me to hurry up and clean it.

I went to the back grabbing blue medical gloves, a couple trash bags and an almost empty paper towel. I figured this mess should've be cleaned with regular sanitizer, and then I remembered seeing a new bottle from last shipment. A bottle SPECIFICALLY for blood and human fluids. If this had happened a week earlier, I wouldve had to use regular sanitizer…

So, I got to business cleaning up a murder scene. While I was doing it, I used some imagination to firgure out what happened. Pretending to be a crime scene investigator and cleanup crew.

As I stated, there was no blood in the stalls. It seemed to me that she stood in the middle of the bathroom and cleaned herself. In the trash bin was a pair of white jean shorts that was no longer white. I started with the floor, scrubbing and leaving some towels down to make my way to the sink. Inside blood trailed into the drain, some dripping under the sink. I cleaned that and the soap or anywhere she could've touched. There was blood on the wall underneath the sink. Everywhere I went I found a splatter of blood. I cleaned that bathroom from top to bottom, thankfully there was no blood on the ceiling. I picked the plastic trash bag up and dumped the whole thing into the garbage bag, then using the end to dump the shorts. The smell was very very overwhelming. At this point I believed she had a mishap with her period, but why not go into the stalls? If it was just her period, then the bathroom stall would be the barker of bad news. Once seeing her shorts, the source of her bleeding was in the crotch, I turned to other possible options, such as an abortion, assault, or hemorrhage.

For context, the restaurant sat on a corner directly next to a train track. Facing the building, to the right down a mile or so was a police station. Directly forward pass the train tracks was a hospital. Both in walking distance from the building.

If she had came from the left, she would be able to see the hospital pass the train tracks. If she came from the right, she would've passed the police station. Now if she had came the adjacent street, she'd still be able to see the hospital or at least a hospital sign, it was that close. If she came left from the adjacent street, she still wouldve passed the police station, this particular strip of road was exclusively businesses, besides a single apartment building between the restaurant and police station, and the motel directly next to the restaurant. Otherwise, neighborhoods are pass the police station.

Any direction she could've came from was an option to get help. But she chose our bathroom. Not the Wendy's next door. I know for a fact she went left when she left, because I was working front counter and I didn't see her leave the right door, but I heard the bell for the left. She either went behind the castle to the hospital, or, taken the sidewalk to either the apartments or the police station.

From the amount of blood, I'd say period is not it. This girl was hemorrhaging. My best guess as to what happened was she was assaulted. If she had an abortion/miscarriage, the toilet would be covered in blood as well. All stalls were clean and untouched since I had been in there. And coming from the distant stare she gave me, the white and shock in her eyes (plus her brown was matted), she was completely disheveled.

Unfortunately, I never found out what happened to her. The manager kinda brushed it off. I wanted them to rewind the security footage but everyone dismissed it, including my medical worker mother. Her response was to wear gloves and be careful. Thanks, Mom, so helpful.

I don't know, I feel icky about the situation and all I can do is hope she got help. It was a LOT of blood. I used two garbage bags to wrap up all the bloody trash. I walked to the garbage area looking like I cleaned up a crime scene. Which… I did.

The only thing I got out of that experience was that I may not mind crime clean up duty. I maybe could help the officers (if they care) about possibilities from a new perspective. I don't actually want to be an officer, I'm not that patient and I rather remain to be the observant. I wouldn't mind being a paramedic though.

All in all, that's only one of my adventures working at my last job. Consider this one apart of the Castle Chronicles :,)