Good news, everybody! I’m not an octopus!

My fingers have been mysteriously ink-stained all day. I haven’t been fingerprinted recently (that YOU know of), and I don’t work in 1885 so I was a little curious as to where the stains were coming from, but then I saw something shiny and totally forgot about my hands.

Eventually, I went to the bathroom. I had taken off my jacket to pee (don’t ask), and when I finished my urinary business I flung the coat over my shoulders jauntily and prepared to exit the stall. It was then that I saw it – freshly sprayed ink all over the walls in a neat splatter trajectory.

What the fuck?

My first thought was that perhaps my jacket hadn’t been properly detagged when I bought it and some sort of security device had burst. A careful inspection of my clothes revealed this was not the case, so where was the ink coming from? And why was I spraying it all over the walls? Clearly, I was an octopus. It was the only logical explanation.

I was halfway decided on my new octopus name when I retraced my steps in the stall and realized that the ink wasn’t ink at all, but black water – and it was coming from the tank of the toilet. The building I work in was built before modern plumbing, and our toilets are terrible – so in order to stop the constant flow of water and actually have the toilet flush, I was reaching into the toilet tank to firmly press down the seal on the drainy thing, which would cause the toilet to fill, which would make flush go – and in doing so, coming in contact with the evidently filthy and oozing black rubber seal. This is problematic, so I am going to request a toilet-fixing stick. But in the meantime, I am officially not an octopus. Today is a good day!