The 'Kettle' Incident

Here is part two. Reading these has made me tempted to re-write them but with better English.

The 'Kettle' Incident

One thing, that anyone who’s ever lived in Halls will testify to, is that people like to pee. Not only do they like to pee, but they like to pee in places other than toilets. Not only do they like to pee in places other than toilets, they like to pee in places that everyone else doesn’t want to find urine. These places will inevitably include the kettle, the microwave, the showers (though you knew that already) and the fridge. A few weeks into living in halls you’re perception of what is and isn’t disgusting changes dramatically. From being a typical hypochondriac, obsessive compulsive middle class child, you suddenly turn into a disgusting, long haired waster with very questionable views on sanitation. So when you find out the next day that one of your mates has peed in the microwave, you hardly bat an eyelid. You nominate someone to give it a quick once over before you allow anyone to use it. Well, almost anyone.

As I may have mentioned before, I lived with a few people who liked a bit of mischief, sometimes this mischief turns into damn right disgustingness. As soon as we find out that someone has peed in one of the kitchen appliances we deliberately decide not to tell someone. On one occasion, that person was me.


I was always up for a night out, but once, when money was getting tight, and work was piling up, I decided, just that once, to go home early. The next morning, I awoke, walked through to the kitchen, and saw the usual group of hungover students that bless our kitchen every day till noon. As it was morning, I thought there would be nothing nicer than a warm cup of tea. I thought nothing of filling up the kettle, waiting for it to boil, pouring the water over my tea bag, and taking that initial sip of lukewarm tea. I thought nothing, of smiling at my hungover mates, feeling some sort of strange victory of actually being able to wake up without promising to never touch alcohol again. That’s when they decided to tell me; “Greenhill pissed in that kettle last night”