Sneaky sex that wasn't that...uh...sneaky

A few weeks ago I went to Ireland for a few days, and booked a bed in a hostel in downtown. I was particularly excited to stay here, as it was cheap and had, in the past, been used as a studio for people like Sinead O'Connor and U2. How cool was that? I could have the chance at some point, I figured, to use the same toilet as Bono. Or the Edge. Or those other two guys in the band that nobody knows the name of. I kid, I kid...it would certainly be an honor to whizz in the same toilet as the drummer and bassist for U2. Just think of all the jealous looks I'll get when I tell people about my connection to Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton! There no way I'll get nothing but blank stares when I namedrop those guys!

But within a day of staying at this hostel, I quickly realized why it had been abandoned by luminaries like Sinead and Bono: it sucky suck sucks. It was filthy, as the bathrooms were never quite entirely clean, and the showers had a generous layer of mold growing in them. I thought for a moment I had wandered onto the set for the Swamp Thing movie. It was also loud, since there was a touristy Irish bar next door with Riverdance-style dancers and a really bad pop-music soundtrack all night long. My window overlooked the alley that separated the bar from the hostel, and the sidedoor from the pub opened up right below me. So that was peaceful.

The most damning part, though, was the fact that there was no water pressure in this place. And I don't mean that in the exaggerated way most people do, like when the water softly cascades out of the head. No, I mean there literally wasn't water pressure; the toilets would rarely flush due to a lack of water in the tanks, so everything you used the can you got a nice little surprise in the bowl. In order to ward off the ill feelings this sight brought, I worked hard to convince myself that maybe someone was just eating Baby Ruths and drinking Mountain Dew while standing in the toilet stall, and unfortunately dropped them both in the tank. And I almost believed that was seeing was just candy bars and soda pop. Almost.

The water pressure situation also made the showers a horrible misapplication of the word. There was no "shower" of water issuing forth from the head (although I think a steady stream of curse words did shower out of my mouth while standing there). There was a steady dripping, which meant that you had to hold each body part under the drip for several minutes to wet, lather, and rinse, so that the entire operation took about 30 minutes for a "quick" wash. By the time I was out of there I was actually looking forward to a shower at my residence hall at Byng Place, a statement which absolutely shocked the other residents back in London.

To understand why this proclamation of a preference for Byng showers caused such a sensation, let me explain how a normal shower runs at Byng. When you first get in, you have to wait about two minutes for any hot water to come out at all. Bear in mind that the stalls for the shower are about two and half feet by two and a half feet square, which means that the shower is barely bigger across than I am, making the avoidance of this icy spray dicey indeed. After the water starts to heat up, things get even more interesting. You know how some fancy shower heads allow you to change the spray patterns, even giving you a random, or at least sequential, change in intensity and focus? Well, they wouldn't spring for something like that for us, so they apparently went for the next best thing: plumbing that makes the water vacillate wildly between Ice-Age coldness and lobster-boiling hotness. And just for fun, they make sure the water cuts out for minutes at a time, usually when you soap starting to get in your eyes or when you are late for class.

When I first started using the Byng showers, I thought it was sort of like gambling, because the temp and flow changes so much. But then I realized the situation was more like the exact opposite of the movie cliche in gambling movies. You know the one, where the guy is trying to argue why he can't lose because of his skill or his system. And the person trying to talk him out of it says they call it gambling for a reason, to which he responds with something along the lines of "It's not gambling if you know you are going to win." Matt Damon uses this sort of line in Rounders when he describes how the same group of guys make it to the Poker finals each year. Anyway, I was wrong about the Byng showers being like gambling, because it isn't gambling if you know you are going to lose. You just never hit the jackpot and have a relaxing hot shower there. So when those damnable showers out in Dublin got a real ripper of a tongue-lashing from me, they got a right dandy one from all the practice I've had yelling at the showers at Byng.

Honestly, the showers at my place in England are worse than post-Communist places I've been to. They rank well behind Turkey, Romania, Hungary and Estonia. Gandhi actually had a nice quote about England. He actually went to school in England, so someone once asked him what he, as a native of India, thought of English civilization. He replied that "I think it would be a good idea." To which I say, "Amen". That is why I am so happy right now, since I am just arrived in Finland on holiday, and just about to take a shower in a country where decent, civilized man can get some continuous hot water.

Oh, and to bring this whole post back to the topic of my trip to Ireland and to the title of this entry, the absolue low point of my trip came on a Saturday night. I thought things had reached their nadir when, while I was sitting alone on a bench by the side of the river, a man came up to me and struck up a conversation. Turns out he was attacked by a crazy guy and stabbed dozens of times, and ended up losing one eyeball during the assault. Turns out his attacker was a nutcase who stabbed people to death and even cut off their penises. Assuming his story was true, I thought that was as bad as my trip could get, because how can you get lower than hearing the story first-hand of a guy who lost one eye (and nearly his penis, apparently) to some crazy? Well, I found a way, damnit! I went back to the hostel to sleep that night, I was resting fine for until the girl in the bed below me (everyone was in bunk beds) decided to get, uh, cozy with her boyfriend from across the room. I was on this trip by myself, and this girl was part of a group of about four people. Lucky for me they decided to have the real sneaky sex in the middle of the night, which meant that the top bed where I was started to sway every so gently in the night. Inappropriate! I wasn't sure what to do, so I basically went into shock and acted like people getting bombed during wartime: I closed me eyes, stayed still, and prayed for merciful god to make it stop as quickly as possible.

In hindsight, though, I wish I was have leaned over my bed and said "One side, playboy! Make room for me chump, and I'll show you how a real man handles his business! Better grab a steno pad and takes notes, cause after tonight your lady friend is gonna be spoiled, and you're gonna have a hell of a lot to live up to."