Sign of the Times..

Sign of the Times by J.B. Pravda

As he gazed into the splattered mirror, in need of cleaning, Ambrose
Spaasky's attention turned to cleansing, a particular focus of his;
there, prominently pasted, albeit askew---he liked things nicely
aligned, as well, but, first things first, he spied a white on red
sticker, pronouncing, in the name of some obscure sanitary code of one
or more governmental units: "EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS".

At age 42, Ambrose was a man of nice discernment, although he evinced a
penchant for the literal, likely rooted in his strongly held belief
that signs, especially those which offered practical guidance in
seemingly clear language and featuring bright color contrast, were the
friend to order. This miniature sign had special qualities which drew
his admiration, not least of which was its unavoidable
placement----very pragmatic, he thought. Yet, for all its qualities
ambiguity abided; in the same way that sleep could be seen as death's
second self, Janus himself seemed to lurk there, within the two-faced
mirror, envisaging chaos within order, the order which his constitution
craved.

This, then, was the mythologic heel of Achilles to Ambrose's corpus,
the stuff of his frightened journey from pathos to bathos.
And, so, true to what he saw as proper form, Ambrose remained, beyond
patience, there, in the restaurant lavatory, awaiting the arrival of an
EMPLOYEE to perform the mandated hygienic task. As the hours passed,
and each entrant through the portal held out preliminary hope of that
desired status, the reply was always a somewhat rude "No" to his gentle
query. He had now grown dangerously weak, his long since neglected
solitary luncheon a mere faint memory. As the closing hour approached,
the cleaning staff discovered Ambrose seated against the tiled wall,
his longing eyes vacantly bemused by his predicament, all the
unintended consequence of some well-intentioned bureacrat whose work
product in the lofty name of sanitation had gone so terribly
awry.

Like some misguided anti-Hippocratic cavalry, enter one Swanson
Cruickshank, solicitor at law.

Having won inestimable fame and riches in his noteworthy and
precedent-shattering string of personal injury victories, now known as
the 'Cesarian Cases', he had, against heavy odds, succeeded in winning
retroactive damages, with interest and punition, on behalf of thousands
of mothers in a class action lawsuit aimed at both fathers and
offspring to those gruesome births. Most memorable amongst the
distinctions, however, was his persuasive jury argument, framed
cleverly, it was agreed by legal scholars, in the well-known Latin
phraseology evocative of betrayal the world over: 'Et tu, Brute?', thus
conjuring up in the fact finders' minds that not only was this lawyer a
really smart guy but, into the bargain, underscored the brutishness of
this act resultant from the largely male conspiracy of doctor, father
and son (none of the cases involved a daughter, per the 'really smart'
impression noted above).
Possessed of the kind, and level, of aggression which insures an
unavoidable connection between such seemingly independent concepts as
'need' and 'bottling plants' operating at capacity year round, Swanson
personified the sturdiest of transitive verbs. Quantum mechanical
electron to Ambrose's nucleus, his minions---strategically located as
virtual spys at all manner of venues host to injuries of the personal
kind---had reported Ambrose's plight to him and, in turn, the media,
his unwitting tools.
In announcing the huge financial settlement on behalf of his very large
class of potential dupes of the aforementioned bureaucratic blunder,
Swanson was quick to point out that not only would the appropriate
signage now make perfectly clear, in at least two single-spaced typed
pages, precisely how hand washing was to take place but, also,
employment for the heretofore vanished post of bathroom attendant was
set to skyrocket.

This, however, having been left to the lawyers had the devastating
effect of causing the bankruptcy of all but the largest and swankiest
eateries and public gathering places, thereby leading to a virulent
pandemic of viral and bacteriological infections of the less
financially able, taking the lives of countless now unwashed millions,
with the exception of those able to attend regularly expensive
restaurants and the like.

No one, it seemed, had thought (except the offending bureaucrat, who
was threatened with a ruinous lawsuit if it ever came to light) to add
the word 'their' before 'hands'. Hence, the plight of those now known
as the 'great unwashed'.