Out of Order

This one is a REALLY old story now... If I hadn't run across the picture of the sink, I probably would have forgotten all about it.

You may remember that during the Osaka Lindy Exchange I had to run home on Sunday morning to attend our school festival and eat lots of food in support of our school clubs. (It was a good think I was spending every other moment of the weekend dancing).



After the festival, the students and staff helped tear down all the tents and put the cafeteria and other areas back in order for school. The Monday after the Exchange, I walked to work as usual. When I got to work, I went to the bathroom to change into my work clothes. I didn't get more than two steps in and abandoned that venue for changing clothes. It was absolutely disgusting.

There was mud (maybe not just mud?) smeared all over the floors and sinks, there were muddy, waterlogged toilet paper rolls stacked in a pyramid on the sink counter and there was an "out of order" sign on one of the sinks. I changed in another bathroom and assumed the janitors would get to our bathroom that morning.

Just before classes started, one of my coworkers came into the office with a shocked look on her face. The conversation went something like this:

"Did you SEE the bathroom?"
"Yeah, pretty gross, huh?"
"How did they manage to break a hole in the sink?"
"Wait, what?"

I went and took a closer look. Sure enough, there was a large hole in one of the sinks.

The rumor I heard later was that a lot of high schoolers from the marching bands were all muddy after performing in the rain. Apparently they decided to wash off, but couldn't figure out how to get the mud off their feet. They ended up trying to stand in the sink to get the mud off, and, well, you can guess how well that went.

Of course, I also heard that they never found the person who broke the sink - so I don't know how the person got pegged as a high schooler. I also don't know where the pyramid of toilet paper rolls came from.

Very mysterious.

I do know our bathroom became a code red, and within an hour everything but the broken sink was cleaned and sweet smelling again. The sink was repaired a week or two later.