The Soul of Wit

Like most of my stories, this debacle began in the shower. I was having a rather unproductive Thursday night, so I decided that a quick shower would wake me up - refreshment, rejuvenation, rebirth and all that.

The shower stalls in this building are examples of the most inept design I have ever had the misfortune to come across. In order to get the outer door shut, you have to step in past the inner curtain (holding your towel and clothes/bathrobe and shower caddy), reach AROUND said curtain (so that you get a faceful of its icky, wet glory), and lock the door. By the way, has anyone else noticed that all locks in dorm bathrooms are kind of shoddy? They rattle and don't slide in completely... how hard is it to make sure the two ends FIT together so that you can live without fear of people barging in on you when you're engaging in activities that are GENERALLY done alone? (Although, if you want to hear about awkward exceptions, ask me about the other shower incident from last year.) Anyway, one of the stall locks is actually like a hook in a loop of thread - knocking on the damn door would cause it to break! No wonder that "Are you pregnant?" is the Tang Center's response to any medical complaint - the ample opportunity for communal nudity in the dorms is rivaled only by the same in a brothel.

Okay, so suppose you manage to get in and "lock" the door. There are two hook-type things to hang stuff on: so far so good, right? NO. One of them is "conveniently" located underneath the most inaccessible shelf ever (hovering some two feet above my head! Granted, I'm short, but STILL). I made the mistake of hanging my towel on this hook and then trying to access the inaccessible shelf. Cut to towel on the (disgusting, hair-filled) floor. Oh, and let me just mention, since I had been at home over the long weekend, my other towel was still in the hamper.

It was a low point in my life: fairly undressed, stooping to pick up contaminated linens off the dirtiest tiles I could even imagine, and facing the prospect of taking a shower with no proper way to dry myself. I ended up just wrapping myself in my bathrobe, soaked, and sulking back to my room like a disgruntled cat that fell in a bathtub.

Am I being over-dramatic? Well, these events are actually just a setup for the horrors of today (and what I really intended to rant about), but I guess I'll leave that for Part 2. I want to go sit cross-legged on the floor by the microwave and compare brooding techniques with Gavin Victor Kenmore (the fridge). Let the downward spiral continue.