the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
12.11.2003
Massive Destruction!!!
Wednesday morning, I awoke to the sounds of someone banging loudly on my dorm room and a man shouting.
Fearing warnings of a blazing fire or a wild gunman loose somewhere in our residence hall, I threw open the door and poked my head out.
One of the maintenance men was going from door to door, knocking and yelling at all of us to check to see if our toilets were working okay.
I was hit by a sinking feeling in my stomach as events from Tuesday night slowly reformed in my memory.
Upon peeling a tangerine and realizing it was really old and disgusting, I looked at my exercise buddy and fellow pseudo-intellectual, Ed, who was hanging out at my room at the time, "LET'S FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET!!"
One of us (until the plumbing matter has been settled, I'm not going to say WHO did it -- but let's just say Ed and I were present, and Ed did NOT do it) immediately threw the rogue fruit down the toilet and let 'er rip.
Unexcitingly enough, it shot down the pipes free and clear.
Or so I thought.
So back to Wednesday morning--
After I was awakened by the maintenance guy's knocking and yelling, I went back to sleep, and 20 minutes later, was jarred awake by even more knocking and yelling.
"I know I bothered you before, but just MAKE SURE it works, okay?" he said, staring at my chest.
"Okay. What's going on?" I inquired, suddenly realizing that my nipples were probably poking through my t-shirt.
"All of the water upstairs is going crazy. None of the toilets are working up there," he answered, eyes still affixed.
Shit, I thought. Shit.
My tangerine flushing had somehow gotten stuck in one of the pipes, and shut down the water all throughout my residence hall!!! All 15 floors!
I gave my throne a test flush. My toilet worked fine. I told him so. He left.
Ed told me later that day that they'd probably trace the tangerine back to my dorm because I would probably be the only person who suspiciously said that my toilet was functioning fine.
Crap!
I thought other people's water would be working fine, too, and that only a few people's toilets would be broken.
But the dry erase board on the door of my next door neighbors said in big, bold, markered words:
"I HATE OUR CONTINUOUSLY FLUSHING TOILET BOWL."
[Peek-a-Foo]