Failing London: A Tale of Two Sisters

My sister came to visit me in London for her Spring Break. On the bus from the airport, she informed me that all of her friends were so jealous because they were only going to Cancun or Miami for spring break, and she was going to Europe! I was very pleased that I could provide my sister with such a envy-inducing trip. I had long been planning on taking her on what I called the "Winning London Tour," which covered all the sites that Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen visit in their movie "Winning London."


One parallel between my life and the movie that I had not considered is my dorm room. In the movie, the Olsen twins are very distraught upon seeing the tiny motel room they're forced to stay in. The only difference is while Mary Kate and Ashley quickly make a deal with a millionaire Brazilian who gives them the penthouse suite at a fancy hotel, I got to stay in my closet-sized room. There are plenty of quirks (a.k.a. problems) with my room. The walls are cracked in a few places and giant chunks of paint have been chipped off, the wardrobe doors don't shut, the shelves are broken, and there's no wireless internet. But luckily, my room is just a place for me to store my stuff and sleep at night, not a place where I actually spend any time. In fact, I don't even mind it's size because for one person it doesn't really make much difference.

However, when my sister arrived, the first thing she mentioned was the size. The two of us have had to share a room our entire lives but that room was big enough for the two of us. There was barely enough space for her to roll out her sleeping bag and stack her suitcases. But we made the best of it, and when it came time to sleep, the only thing she could really complain about was the hardness of the ground.

I awoke the next morning--St. Patrick's Day--to the sound of dripping water. I assumed it was my sink and was too lazy to try and turn it all the way off. Instead, I tried to ignore the sound and went back to sleep. I awoke again to the sound of water, except this time it sounded like someone was peeing. Now, my room is right next to the communal bathrooms, so I'm used to vague sounds of the digestive system. But this was much louder. Like someone was going to the bathroom in my room. I sat up and looked at the sink (I can see it from my bed). There was no water coming from the faucet. I stood up, carefully avoiding my sister's sleeping face as I did so and started to follow the sound. There was really nowhere to actually move to, so I turned to my wardrobe and finally looked up.

My ceiling was leaking. And as I watched, the stream of water grew bigger, and multiplied.

My lovely sleeping sister awoke to the sound of my cursing like a sailor and shouting "abandon ship!" as I desperately threw all of my clothes out of the wardrobe and onto my bed, then the sound of my opening the door and slamming it behind me as I flew downstairs to find the warden.

I found the security guard, who followed me upstairs and helped me and my now-conscious sister move the shelves, dresser, and finally the wardrobe six inches to the left (that's all the room there was to move them). In the process my carefully built pyramid of soda cans toppled and I stubbed my toe on my sister's toe. The security guard said he'd go find the warden and a bucket, and I went in the kitchen to grab every pot and bowl I could find. As these objects caught the waterfall coming from my ceiling, I noted that the water was not clear.

The warden appeared, informed me that the toilet was overflowing in the bathroom on the floor above, and that she would call a plumber.

"Do you have a mop?" she asked me.

I blinked. "No. Why?"

"The water in the bathroom needs to be mopped up. Then your ceiling will stop leaking."

This made logical sense. "I don't have a mop," I said. I live in a carpeted room. Why would I own a mop? "The kitchen has one."

"Well," the warden said, looking unconvinced. "If you use that one, you'll have to replace it. Because you can't mop up toilet water with the same mop that cleans the kitchen."

I stared at her for a moment, then said, "I'm not mopping up the bathroom." It's not my bathroom. I'm certainly not buying a mop because this building is falling apart. You're the warden, it's your job to take care of this, not mine. Big surprise I've never seen you during my entire time in London. (I didn't say any of this, as I'm sure she was probably thinking plenty of things about me that she didn't say to my face).

She got the security guard to clean the bathroom.

On a side note: British people are very nice and friendly when you talk to them on a casual basis. I've made several British friends and have gotten on a first name basis with a lot of the staff here at the dorm. But when it comes time for them to do their jobs, or do something that isn't in the job description, but certainly implied in their title, they are either lazy or incompetent. Or they just don't care. Most British people claim that Americans are too job-centered, but the British are very self-centered when it comes to the work they don't want to do.

After the security guard mopped up, I was informed (by the security guard, not the warden) that the plumber would arrive between seven and ten hours. The ceiling never officially stopped leaking until the plumber came at later that night. As a result, my sister and I spent her first day in London emptying buckets of toilet water into my sink every half hour or so. A wonderful beginning to the trip her friends were so jealous of.

My sister, having the time of her life her first day in London.