masterwordsmith-unplugged

A private school in Washington, D.C., recently was faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on their lips in the bathroom.

That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the bathroom mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would have to scrub especially hard to remove the prints. And, the next day, the girls would put them back. So the principal spoke to the teachers and asked them for their help. They then spoke to the girls, but after two weeks, the situation didn't improve at all.

She even called a few of the girls' parents who were her friends for their advice, but to no one could come up with a solution. The mirrors were constantly covered with lipstick prints.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She knew the standard threats of punishment would not work so she gave careful thought as to what would leave an effective, lasting impression on the girls.

So she met with the maintenance man and after a brief discussion, they called a number of the influential girls to the bathroom. She explained that the lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to scrub the mirrors every night.

One could see the young girls smiling at each other, all nodding publicly but smirking one to another. Now the principal was ready to put her plan into effect.

She said it was important to demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the lipstick off the mirrors, so it was necessary to ask the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required to remove the lipstick.

With disinterest the girls watched the custodian proceed to take a long handled brush and walk slowly over to a toilet, but then in shocked horror, they saw him dip the brush deep into the bowl, and then walk back to the mirror and carefully scrub the lipstick off with the dripping wet brush.

From that day forward, the mirrors stayed lipstick free.

~ Author Unknown ~