The Amazing Lipstick Remover

By Todd Maguire on January 24, 2014 in Other

It took a lot to upset Habachi, the cleaner and maintenance man at the esteemed business college in the city of Sydney. He only worked four hours a day, which gave him plenty of time to himself outside of work. A twice-weekly round of golf, a swim at Clovelly beach each morning and a few beers at his local bowling club seemed to keep him out of trouble.

Every afternoon at the college Habachi would give the bathrooms a really good going over. He was proud of his quarry, managing to keep the girls’ and boys’ loos spotlessly clean. The hygiene levels Habachi maintained were on par with the sterile operating theatre at the Prince of Wales Hospital.

As per normal, the girls’ bathroom was generally messier than boys’ room. This didn’t worry the meticulous Habachi a great deal. Unfortunately there was one habit of the young ladies at the college that did manage to get under his skin. They would doll themselves up with the most garish coloured lipstick and kiss the bathroom mirror to leave their mark. Sometimes there were more than a dozen sets of kisses left on the mirror for Habachi to clean.

Hibachi had endured enough. It wasn’t the end of the world but he didn’t quite see the romance anymore in the annoying petty vandalism. He reported the problem to the business college coordinator, and with more bark than bite the coordinator gave all the girls a good dressing down. She gave them ten rounds of the kitchen, explaining that Habachi was good man and was sick to his eye teeth with the girls’ frivolous daily prank. The childish behaviour had to come to an end.

Frustratingly, the very next day the girls were at it again. To Habachi’s disgust there were the customary dozen lipstick prints on the mirror.

“Those little cows!” he spat into the sink and proceeded to remove the lipstick prints from the otherwise sparkling clean mirror. That evening, over a beer with his good mate Bruno, Habachi hatched a fiendish square-up plan.

The next day Habachi was at the ready. During the lunch break he made a point to discretely loiter around the outside of the girls’ bathroom, pretending to give the hallway carpet an extra good going over with the vacuum cleaner.

When the half dozen suspected felons entered the bathroom, the cleaner gave them time to do their private business. When he heard a wave of giggles coming from the bathroom he made his move. As he daringly entered the girls’ bathroom, he was confronted with the notorious culprits kissing the mirror with great passion. They had been caught ‘red lipped’, so to speak.

They were startled by Habachi’s presence. The cleaner managed to hide his annoyance behind a Cheshire grin. The girls couldn’t have been more sorry, their apologies fuelled by sheer embarrassment.

“Not a problem, girls,” Habachi responded. He grabbed the stained, well-used toilet brush from his bucket. “This is how I get the stuff off the mirror. It’s really easy.” Habachi gripped the toilet brush, whisked it around the bowl of the nearest toilet and headed to the mirror, continuing with his demonstration. “You’ve got to make sure there’s plenty of toilet water on the brush.”

He then proceeded to scrub down the mirror with the dripping toilet brush, ensuring that plenty of ‘clean water’ washed all over the mirror. The girls were aghast.

“There you go,” he offered, placing the brush back in his bucket. “That toilet water works wonders on the mirrors.”

After his cleaning demonstration, Habachi turned face and headed straight out of the bathroom, leaving the girls in a state of shock. The sour look on their faces made his day. Funnily enough, the girls never left any more lipstick prints on Habachi’s seemingly clean mirrors ever again. It was finally a small win for the good guys.