How low can you go?

While we were out in the Himmarshee/Riverfront area this weekend, I witnessed an event that got me wondering just how low a person will go to swindle a few bucks.

On the big bar nights, all the bars will have bathroom attendants. These are women (usually Haitian Immigrants) who make a living sitting inside a bathroom all night long. They not only hand you your paper towel after you wash your hands, but they make sure all the stalls are stocked with TP, soap, paper towels, and any other necessities. Most of the women will supply a whole bunch of different supplies such as deodorant, mouthwash, body sprays, perfumes, hair spray, etc., so you can fix yourself up if you come a little undid during the night. And quite possibly, one of the most important things that these women will do is keep the restrooms in order. They clean up messes from untidy women, and keep the bathrooms from getting totally disgusting. And any woman who has had to use a bar restroom on a busy night can appreciate a service like this.

These women work on tips alone. The bars pay them nothing at all, they just simply allow them the privilege to sit and clean their restrooms all night. I imagine that maybe some of the bars might tip the ladies out, but I think that most of the women are left to make their own money. I'm sure they actually make pretty good money doing this, but I genuinely do feel for these people. They are people who probably work 2 or 3 jobs to make a living. Just think of it. Would you really want to do this for a living?

So last night while I was in a restroom, I saw a couple of girls trying to rip one of these women off. The girl bought a lollipop from the lady for $1. The lady stowed away the dollar and then the girl asked for her change. The lady said that the lollipop was $1, and the girl said, "I know, but I gave you a $10 bill." The argument went back and forth a couple of times before the lady opened up her stash to show that there were no $10 bills in it at all. The girl's friend finally told her that she made a mistake and it was actually a $1 bill. Then the girl started yelling at the lady that she had made a mistake, but now she wanted an apology because the lady was rude to her and gave her attitude, and yelled at her. Excuse me? I believe that not only did you try to swindle the lady, but you were the one who started yelling at her first.

Come on. How low do you have to be to try and steal from and verbally abuse one of these women? No pun intended, but these women have to put up with a lot of crap to make a few bucks.