Mechanical Troubles

My university is constantly plagued with mechanical troubles. I think it's the usual culprit of state-run non-efficiency--the kind where you are obliged because of union rules to work exclusively with an exceptionally expensive yet incompetent contractor who screws you over in multiple nefarious ways--combined with a desire to cut costs wherever necessary by being, well, cheap.

So today, as I wandered through various newly-minted foundation buildings whose air conditioning was already caput¹, I wondered whether this, too, was the fault of crappy state contractors or whether it was all just part of a continuing diabolical plan by the administration to make us real workers miserable.

It may be the latter, but I'm not sure. Too many weird mechanical things happen at San Diego State. I already posted once about the oddities of the new building the English Department moved into: the light switches placed not at body height, where you'd expect them, for example, but one inch below the ceiling instead; the office with two built-in desks placed not adjacent or perpendicular to each other as one might find in a normal work-space, but rather squashed against each other out of a single wall.

Why?

Anyway, all these imponderables are merely a preamble for today's bizarre incident. I was in the ladies' room in the library when someone came into the bathroom and entered the stall next to mine. All was pretty much what you'd expect for several seconds--the sounds of two women ignoring each other as best they can while committing private acts in a public facility. And then a loud crashing sound commenced in the stall next door. This was a continuous, thunderous, ongoing crashing, as if very large plastic bowls had somehow come shooting out of the ceiling and splintered on the ceramic facilities in the stall five feet yonder.

After a while the crashing noises stopped, at which point there was a rather pronounced silence.

Now, there is a certain etiquette in ladies' rooms, just as (so I hear) there are in men's rooms. Normally women do not speak to each other in bathrooms unless absolutely necessary. It MIGHT be appropriate to warn a complete stranger that she has zipped her underwear up in the back of her skirt, for example, but I'm not sure I would do it. (And neither would a lot people, judging from the relatively large number of women you do see wandering around with their underwear zipped up.) It is pretty much completely unacceptable to begin a conversation with a stranger in the stall next to yours--even in those awkward occasions where you find you've run out of toilet paper and need someone to pass more over to you.²

So I was not sure what to do. My normal sense of charity urged me to at least ask whether the young lady was okay. Should I dial 911? Offer bandaids?

Being me, however, I simply fled the scene as quickly as I could without doing anything. I left the library without checking out my books, lest the perpetrator see me elsewhere in the building and recognize, say, my shoes. Best to evacuate the scene entirely, I figured. I didn't want to be implicated. Mutual embarrassment was almost sure to ensue, not to mention the fact that I might have had to help fix whatever it was that broke.

Because I'm pretty sure I know what happened. Something similar had happened to me in another restroom on campus only a few months before. I'm sure they've all been built by the same sorry jokers. On that particular occasion, I entered a ladies' room stall, seated myself comfortably, and was minding my own business when somehow the entire gigantic plastic housing mechanism that holds the toilet paper came flying off the wall and onto my head. I swear I had touched nothing. This event also made lots of loud crashing noises, and indeed startled me so badly that I screamed audibly enough to be heard in the men's room next door.

These types of things are always happening at San Diego State University, where normal activities like using restrooms and riding elevators are undertaken at your own peril. Automatic toilets like to flush themselves energetically and unexpectedly, shooting you, if you are not quick, in the leg or some other inconvenient place. Elevators like to stop midway between floors. Soap dispensers almost never work, and paper-towel holders jam. There are temperature controls in almost every room on campus, but they don't actually control anything. Apparently they are placed on walls for decoration. Main doors to buildings holding classrooms are frequently locked mid-week, and dry-erase boards don't actually erase. Even the pencil sharpeners will explode on you.

But I love working here anyway. Can't you tell?

____

¹After checking the spelling of the slang word "caput" ("broken," "done-for"), I discovered that the caput also has a legitimate definition: "a protuberance of the head." Obviously I am making use of the slang definition here.

²Which is why it always freaks me out when women start yakking on their cell phones in there. For a few confused and disgusted seconds I think they might be talking to me. But then I realize, No! It's actually much worse than that--she's talking to her boyfriend while taking a whiz!

But I suppose that is another story.