An Ode to the Uncomfortable...

Dear Bathroom Attendant,

Seriously, you make the simplest everyday task of using the restroom at a bar into a clumsy ballet of awkwardness and forced gratuities. Now I understand your purposes: to keep the bathroom clean, stop people form urinating all over the floor or starting fights with dispensed hand soap, as well as inevitably preventing people from a most cherished act, fornicating in filthy bathroom stalls. However, that all takes a backseat to your more commonly executed functions, namely turning on the sink, giving me soap, and dishing out a paper towel to dry my miraculously washed hands, all actions I clearly would not have been able to do myself. Is this what it was like to have servants back in the day? Ive become to rethink my position of jealousy to robber barons and their household staffs of 20 and rather think it must have been unpleasant or awkward at times.
Once we get past the ridiculousness of you turning on the faucet for me or dispensing soap, we get to the most unpleasant situation of all, your tip basket. Note, it is almost always a basket, with some soft hand towel lining the bottom. If I was able to use that particular towel to gently dry my hands, maybe its a different story, instead I am stuck using the industrial grade paper town that has gravel and sandpaper infused into its wax paper like texture. But I digress. Your tip basket glares at me as I cleanse my soiled hands, imploring me to pay tribute. But for what? I appreciate your hustle sir, but if I tipped for idly standing by as I pursue a normal night at the bar, then I would have to dish out singles to all those sweaty mouthbreathers who exhale heavily from the sidelines as they watch my get my grind on out on the floor, cause they make me feel about as uncomfortable.
Some of the more entrepreneurial attendants have quite an impressive spread of colognes, gum, and assorted candies. These gentleman I have a bit less disdain for because they have maneuvered into a sort of bathroom attendant/convenience store hybrid. I also have no problem "tipping" these chaps as I see it as more of a traditional, if overpriced, purchase to keep my breath minty fresh or mask the odor of a packed establishment full of sweaty CBS (common bar skanks). I prefer these little setups to other bathroom commerce centers, say, the vending machine that always manages to be foul and sticky looking, distributing prophylactics most likely manufactured during the Nixon Administration.
Finally, let me express my most significant annoyance with your overall presence: your seemingly constant ability to always be on the phone. I never thought it was possible for one to possibly spend as much time on their cellphone as a Middle Eastern cabbie, but no, you have them seemingly surpassed. I have come to realized that teenage girls have been savagely misrepresented as comical scapegoats of excessive cell phone usage. At least when my public chauffeur is chatting away, there is a possible time change involved and his conversational partner may be sitting watching TV midday, and its in the relative quiet of a cab cockpit. But you, Mr. Attendant, who the hell are you chatting with at 1:30 in the morning? Better yet, at 1:30 who has nothing better than to have a conversation with you, punctuated by the flushing of urinals, slamming of doors, and who knows what other cacophony of bodily sounds fill a Men's Washroom. All that nonsense aside, how am I honestly expected to tip when you can't even hang up the phone to squirt me some soap? Child please.
In fairness, there are the gregarious, usually older, gentlemen who transcend the awkwardness and even elicit a chuckle from my cold cynical bathroom outlook, but they are as rare of the CBS who is pure of heart as well as pure of loin. They also tend to have climbed the ladder to be working in baller steakhouses and the like, not grubby bars where the presence of an attendant is as baffling as a preference for Bud products over Miller.
Now Jeeves, spritz me with some of that Acqua di Gio and hand me a piece of your finest chewing gum so I may be off. I'll see you again, unfortunately, in about a half hour...

JW