Yesterday on the Other Side of the World

This is a chronicle of my life and times in the US, first as a foreign student from Malaysia/Singapore, and then as a cog in the wheel of a large US company. It aims to be a synthesis of (a) reminiscence of things past; and (b) blog entries I might have written if I had a blog then.

Name:
Location: Malaysia

Thursday, January 26, 2006

drip drip

In college, there were nights when I’d work till 3 or 4 in the morning, then climb into bed dreading the ring of the alarm clock at 8:45 for my 9 am class. Those must not have been the only kinds of nights, since there was at least one night during my sophomore year that was different. I had climbed into the upper bunk of the bunk bed (I got the upper bunk both years that I had roommates; they would always arrive on campus before I did). I must have been in bed earlier than usual that night, because my roommate Jay was in the lower bunk, and we were chatting.

Big deal, so what? Lots of roommates talk to each other in college dorms all over the world. Indeed, the details of that particular conversation – perhaps it was about life, the future, girlfriends – have been lost forever. But into the pit of mundaneness came something that would transform the night forever (or for a very long time at least).

Many dorm rooms at Princeton are in buildings constructed 1 or 2 centuries ago. Such was this one, in Holder Hall. We were on the 4th floor of a 5-floor ancient building, and had a living room and tiny bedroom. The bedroom felt even smaller because part of its ceiling that was slanted, perhaps because it was under the lower portion of the roof of the building. The presence of a large skylight in the slanted part of the ceiling helped bring cheer to an otherwise windowless room. The slanted ceiling was over the part of the room next to the door, so it could be seen immediately upon entrance. The bunk bed was tucked away towards the inside of the room, next to the walk-in closet. Jay’s desk was out in the living room, whereas mine was in the bedroom under the skylight.

So, on that night, we were each in our respective bunks, and it was dark except for some weak beams of light that were ending their long journey from the moon on my desk under the skylight.

Drip drip
A trickle
we
g
r
a
d
u
a
l
l
y
noticed
some liquid was coming into the room in small drops. Were it not for the sound of the collision of each drop with my desk by the wall, we may not have noticed. I wasn’t particularly bothered. So small did the trickle seem. But Jay got up and checked it out. On came the flashlight. “Hey, it’s coming from the skylight.” Moan, groan, now what?

The lights came on. I sat up. We enlisted the aid of our senses of sight and smell. The liquid was pale and slightly yellowish, especially when seen collected in the slowly growing puddle on my desk. Jay detected its smell too. “Someone’s going to the bathroom upstairs, and its coming in through the open window!” (there was no bathroom upstairs – the only bathrooms were in the basement way below)

My mind was still working in slow motion, but already, Jay was leaving our room and charging up the stairs to determine the culprit. Well, we knew the 4 guys living in the 5th floor room (it was a “quad”, whereas our room was a “double”) above, but it still didn’t hurt that Jay was a football player. I wonder what I might have done or not done, had I had a single room, but my roommate was headed upstairs, and so I followed. There was a loud knocking on their door, some yelling when they opened it, and finally, a storming of the bedroom of Tad, one of the 4 occupants of the room.

Tad, understandably, was not happy to be have been roused from bed. Maybe he had pulled a couple of all-nighters in a row and was very tired (not an uncommon situation in college). Maybe after months of having to walk down 5 flights of stairs, and then one more, to get to the basement to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he’d gotten tired of doing so. Maybe he hadn’t been able to sink back easily into deep sleep after previous bathroom runs, especially after the stimulating climb up the stairs. In any case, he had decided that night that opening his window and using the roof beneath as his urinal would be much more convenient making the bathroom run.

Now, he was being roused by an angry football player seeking justice. Even the angry football player’s roommate, normally mild-mannered and unassuming, was in Tad’s room confronting him. Crap, why did this have to happen? The angry football player demanded that he go down and clean up the mess he had made.

Still rubbing his eyes, Tad grabbed a big white towel and walked down to our room with us. Jay pointed. Tad wiped. Jay pointed some more. Tad wiped some more. “And there too”, and so on. Maybe it would have been easier to just go down to the bathroom in the basement like everyone else. After a while it was all done. Jay might have asked me if there was anything else I’d like Tad to do, I don’t remember. Anyway, I didn’t make any demands, and Tad took his towel and left.

The next day, it was back to business as usual, using the desk – I don’t recall scrubbing the desk with soap and water or disinfectant or anything like that. After all, when one moves into a dorm room, one never knows how the previous occupants have treated the furniture (the same applies for hotel rooms). If one were to get paranoid about all the dead skin cells, bed mites and other stuff left in the mattresses by previous occupants, one would not be able to get a good night’s rest. For the record, I enjoyed some of the best sleep ever on the mattresses in the dorm rooms in Princeton – they were thick, and they had just the right amount of bounce for me.

Anyway, nothing like that ever happened again. Luckily for me, none of my books or papers was damaged or otherwise contaminated. I only threw out some dental floss that had happened to be in the path of the urine shower.

3 Comments:

Blogger the deLicious Word said...

Yeah, amazing isn't it? did you have an experience that can top this one?

5:00 PM  
Blogger nicole said...

this is so funny!!! hahahah! I am glad no one is at home to see me laugh in front of a computer. campus life!! reading your blog brings me back to my undergrad days!

9:09 PM  
Blogger the deLicious Word said...

why, is there a problem with the way you laugh? oh, you laugh .. differently .. in front of a computer? :-)

12:52 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home