In a move that has stunned the nation, American cleaners of all sorts — from gruff janitors to sultry maids — have over the past few days quit their jobs en masse to protest the “irreversibly dirty American soul.”
Billy Friedman, spokesman for the coalition and a former window-wiper of federal buildings in Washington, DC, made a public statement explaining the move.
“Over the course of our cumulative thousands of years of experience cleaning anything and everything, it’s become clear to America’s custodial laborers that no amount of water, soap, bleach, steel wool, paper towels, sponges, mops, brooms, dusters, vacuums, brushes, rags, detergent, polish, or acid can ever hope to erase the taint which stains the soul of each and every American citizen,” Friedman explained to a stunned audience last Thursday. “This is a filth that has festered for decades, and has with its twisted malevolence and unrelenting ferocity corrupted every man, woman, and child who lives within the United States.”
The nation is scrambling for a solution to this sudden and absolute lack of professional cleaning skills, but already common citizen are seeing its effects: dust gathered on shelves, cobwebs formed in corners, mold creeping up walls. Friedman sees a sick justice in the situation, though.
“Our gesture is a symbolic one, and — we hope — a memorable and powerful one,” he explained. “Us janitors may not be able to solve the problem, but we can at least hope to reveal what it looks like. What you’re all finally seeing is what we’ve been exposed to for our whole lives: the sickening rot, the moldering decay, and the putrid stench is only an outward display of what’s been inside each of you all along.”
At press time, Friedman had advised all of America’s spiritually-compromised citizens to seek redemption from the nearest wad of moist towelettes.
