A bit of a mess

I went away on a solo weekend recently. Because this year I’m going to visit the first ten places on my local travel list and two on the international. Well, at least try. On my first solo yolo I decided to head to Somerset. I splurged on a lovely little family-run, boutique hotel in Bath.

I was rather chuffed with my quirky little Victorian room. A four poster bed. Maroon velvet cushions. A bottle of South African merlot. And lots of other special touches. I felt like a princess. I quickly unpacked and prepared to head out into the city for the afternoon. Feeling rather parched after my drive up, I reached for my open orange juice with a little too much enthusiasm. Somehow I managed to knock it over and spill thick, sticky juice all over the cream carpet.

I acted quickly. I grabbed a toilet roll from the bathroom and used a good half of it to get the orange juice out of the carpet. Success! I was about to throw the orangey paper mess in the bin but then I realised it would look somewhat dodgy. And I didn’t want to cleaning staff to judge me. So, ingeniously, I threw it all in the loo and flushed. It took a few flushes to get the whole lot down. I felt a wonderful sense of achievement. Clean floor. Clear loo. Perfection restored.

Off I went on my adventure. I started at the Roman Baths and totally geeked out on swishing my hands around in the lovely, warm water that the Romans used to skinny dip in two thousand years ago. I stopped geeking out when I noticed the sign warning visitors that the water is ‘dangerous’ due to old, lead pipes and shouldn’t be touched. Oops. Next I headed to the abbey and then through the lovely city streets.  

After soaking up as much Bath, as I could in one afternoon and evening I stopped off for a curry. Then I headed back to my hotel, feeling smug. On getting back to my room I started to feel a little woozy. Possibly from the curry. Possibly from the lead poisoning. I made friends with the loo for some time. (Sorry). On flushing, the water began rising. I flushed more. Things rose more. Everything was coming up instead of going down. I desperately flushed repeatedly somehow making it worse. It was like being in a Ben Stiller movie.

Armageddon exploded in my bathroom. It was the end of my dignity. My germaphobia. My pride. And reception was shut. There was no one to help. I thought of calling 999, but quickly reconsidered when running through how I would explain my life-threatening emergency to the operator. I guess I could have called the hotel’s night line. Or a plumber. I could have packed my bags and headed to the nearest Holiday Inn. Most helpfully, I could have stopped flushing.

At some point, I gave up. I went to bed feeling very uneasy, hoping that when I woke up in the morning, the chaos would have sorted itself out. Because that kind of thing happens all the time. Because sometimes life sends you a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Guess what? That didn’t happen. I woke up to a half-flooded bathroom and all kinds of terror. I texted some friends that were staying nearby in an attempt to get help, advice or sympathy. I made a joke, suggesting switching hotels with them. They didn’t bite. I was on my own.

I somehow managed to shower and dress. Then I sheepishly crept down to reception to tell the owner that I’d destroyed his beautiful bathroom. Mortifying. I then disappeared for the day ensuring I wouldn’t have to face him ever again. I had a wonderful day and managed to forget the disaster I’d left in my wake. I avoided coming into contact with anything that could give me lead poisoning and I had a Subway for dinner, with no mayo, no chilli, no jalapenos. And when I made my way back to my hotel, I found my room fresh and perfect, as though nothing had happened.

On going to bed I couldn’t feel at ease thinking about how strangers had had to clean up behind me. I felt so weird about it that I struggled to sleep. I know it’s their job, but it’s still not fair. Passing the buck(et) after I caused chaos just felt wrong. The next morning I left an overly generous tip for the cleaning staff as I said goodbye to my room. It wasn’t enough, I should have left them the password to my bank account.

As I get through things that just aren’t fair and deal with the messes around me that I didn’t cause (on purpose) I will continue to remind myself that sometimes that’s just the way things are. We all have those days. We all cause those days (hopefully unintentionally). We learn the lessons. We take the hit. And we figure out to stop flushing.

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