Ew and Q.

About a year ago, my employer moved her small business from the attic of her house to an office space in San Francisco's Dogpatch. Working in my boss' attic wasn't as bad as it sounds -- we were a homey little unit -- but by the time we graduated to a real office space, we were excited.

Our new office received more decorating attention than my own home. Paint colors, furniture, beanbags and signage were all given serious scrutiny. The boss, ever trained on the details, even got hand towels monogrammed with our company's acronym for the bathrooms, along with magazine racks. Each of the two bathrooms got a placard denoting men's and women's, even though the placards were immediately ignored.

First, let's talk about the magazine racks. To me, I don't know what marks women's lib more: the fact that we just hired a male assistant for an office of all women for this holiday season, or the fact that we got fricking magazine racks for the bathroom. The only difference between us and a guy office was that the mag rack had issues of People and Gourmet instead of Sports Illustrated. (We do, however, have some issues of Business Week as well.) We all raised our eyebrows about the installation of the mag racks, but I think secretly we all like them.

The hand towels, which are white with stitched initials, are now a year old and nasty. Even when they are freshly laundered, they still appear to be grubby with handmarks. Everyone complains about it, but who among us wants to take on the issue of the office hand-towel? Most normal companies just have paper and are done with it.

Women tend to get fussy about using a men's bathroom when they're in public and the line for the women's is too long. While it's true that men's bathrooms tend to be disgusting, ladies, don't even front. We're the ones who create the foulest bathroom scenes, and you know it. I had a line in here about why, but it grossed out even myself, so I have deleted it.

Our office bathrooms tend to suffer given the fact that we don't have a nightly cleaning service, but little about them has truly skeeved me out -- until today.

I went to dry my hands on the gross towels and encountered a perfect, red lipstick print: Someone had pressed her lips to our hand towels.

I don't even want to press my hands to our hand towels.

That's all I really have to say. Lipstick print. On the hand towels.

In other news, here's this month's reason to be happy. Lindemann, I know you are listening...