The Glamorgan Mafia

THE GLAMORGAN MAFIA

BOOM! CRASH! My brain screams as I am wrenched cruelly out of my blurry dream. I sit up in panic and, disorientated, I jump out of bed like a rabid zombie. A stray shoe throws itself in front of me and forces my poor, confused feet to tangle together, throwing the rest of my body to the floor. As I lie in a crumpled, quivering heap, a sinister scraping noise moves along the bottom of the door. Am I having a nightmare? Then I hear the familiar cackling and screeching noises emanating from the hallway. The cleaners are hoovering again.

I’m sure that cleaners are not hired to clean but to wake and kill students who dare to sleep past 10am. Don’t let Henry the Hoover deceive you, with his big innocent eyes and useful nature. He is in cahoots with them. He has become their tool, and is known to them as the door basher. The evidence is all there: the bottom of my door has several chips in it from Henry’s hidden teeth. Anyway, I am positive that when I walked into my room last night, there were no crumbs to hoover up outside my door. Therefore it shouldn’t need hoovering, unless some stray squirrels have decided to have a feast in the corridor during the night. I suppose I’m slowly becoming used to bouncing off the floor on a regular basis anyway. If it’s not the cleaners giving me my morning panic attack then it’s the dulcet screams of the fire alarm. If only the carpet was thicker.
The cleaners are being particularly rough with Henry this morning. I think I left a cup in the sink again. You must never ever leave anything in the sinks in the morning. Not even a teaspoon. This is a very strict rule, although one of the silent type. You are never told about it, you are just expected to know. If you don’t then prepare to be hung, drawn and quartered. When you leave university you will find that not only do you have a degree in your chosen subject, you also have an honours in mind reading.

I found out about this silent rule one unfortunate morning when I chose to venture into the kitchen during a cleaning session. The Ainsley Harriot book had been used the night before. Later, being too stuffed to move, we had all left the dishes in the sink to stew in their own muck. I was saddened to see that the dishes had decided not to wash themselves overnight; however, the sight of our cleaner ripping our plates apart with her bare hands was far worse. Having finished wrecking our kitchen she then turned on me. She shrieked something about “sinks” and “ungrateful students”. I really couldn’t understand what she was getting at, so I ignored her. She went slightly mental and I stayed in bed for a couple of days afterwards. A recovery period you could call it.

Apparently our sinks are for the cleaners to use. NOT for us to put our dishes in. Our taps provide the water for the dingy mop buckets (I’m sure that this practice is not hygienic) and by leaving anything in the sink you cause the cleaners immense heartache. This would be why I am lying on the floor right now. My cup in the sink must have caused enough heartache to justify giving me a massive panic attack.
I often wonder: what normal students do their dishes every night anyway? Most images that I have of a student kitchen are of plates stacked to the ceiling, encrusted with mouldy food, and sinks filled to the brim with cutlery. This idea of having sparklingly clean kitchens is very discomfiting and hurts my brain to think about it.

It is rather unfortunate for the cleaners that my whole flat fancy themselves as amateur chefs, me included I suppose. Nobody has microwave meals in this place. It’s all start from scratch and use every single plate, cup, and saucepan until the cupboard is bare. No chance of washing up as we go along either. Our dishes pile often resembles a somewhat warped form of Mount Everest, and it takes longer to wash them than it would to climb it. It’s only three weeks into term and already my hands have morphed into wrinkled prunes. I don’t think that any amount of hand cream will bring them back. Oh how I wish for the days of being at home and having the miracle dishwasher machine - my mother.

I can hear the horrendous sounds of crashing and cackling from the kitchen again. I am really hungry for my breakfast now but I will continue to lie on the floor, patiently. Hopefully, the Mafia will retreat soon and take Henry to chew on someone else’s door.